Tag: Gospel

Her Eyes Are Busy With Light

On By dorahakIn Poems29 Comments
Mary and Baby Jesus, Oil on Paper, 2018, Katy Hawk

Her eyes are busy with light
Though I worry her with my doubts
There are candles in picture windows
Flirty love ballads on stereos
Ivy stabbed with holly
Santas under mistletoe
And I can’t get enough of the night.

Her eyes are busy with light
Though I fear her faith is naïve
Government thugs surveil, killing with drones
Children trafficked in towns, families ripped
Credit flows lucre between banks into pockets
Drugs dull, cocktails insensitize till we all go aground
And I burrow into the darkness of the night.

Her eyes are busy with light
Her hopes against my fears
She doesn’t see weakness in a babe in a manger
She doesn’t see defeat in a man on a cross
She doesn’t see what I see in a handful of dust
When the devil comes calling to offer a favor
And I run like the dickens to add to my scars.

O Winter, O Church Bells, O Dawn of revelation!
Would I could see her Savior, hear hallelujahs
Know what it feels like to know darkness conquered
Have peace and contentment, courage in the fight
To overthrow temptations and to laugh at my weakness
With Christ as my Brother, crying ‘Abba! Father!”
And wordless prayers by the Spirit means I’m not alone.

In such a heart as mine, O Father, enter in
In such a world as mine, O Christ, enter in
In such a darkness as this, O Spirit, enter in
Your call I hear above the noise
Your love for me over unbelief overflows
Before I can seek You, God, You have sought me
To save and to keep me eternally in You.

My eyes are busy with His Light
My life is bursting with His Life
My weakness melts in His Strength
The darkness dispersed by His Word
The pain we bear makes me aware
That God suffered in His flesh
To deliver us from death
And, hallelujah, our eyes are busy with Light!

[Jesus said,] “If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”

Luke 11:36

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

Luke 1:46-55

Light

On By dorahakIn Poems57 Comments

Unlooked for.
You were unlooked for.
Unhoped for.
You were unhoped for.
Where I was
You were not.
Where You were
I was not.
Sudden. Then.
It was sudden.
Not the shuddering
of wings, not of swan.
Angels watched.
Unwatched for.
What are you looking at?
Put ‘em back, your hallelujahs.
Because I’m a mess.
A blubbering mess.
Mess of sticky goo, sin.
Call it what you will.
It was painful, this birth.
This death. At twenty.
A resurrection in You.
In You. In You. In You.
I can’t get over You.
I can’t get over You.
You know me through and through.
You know me through and through.
You swaddled me
not in a manger.
You fed me at Your breast
Your Holy Spirit milk.
You hid me in Egypt.
You found me at Jacob’s well.
You suffer me a cross to bear
You bore it as well. For me. For me.
You birthed me. You loved me.
It’s not a fluke of biology
this Light as in Damascus.
This Love, this Light, this manger
this cross, this thorny crown
this night, this life over which
this darkness cannot roll.
This Love is Light is mine.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. … The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

John 1:1-5, 9-13
Grace at dVerse asks us to write either in the form of Kwansaba or write a poem of blessing or praise in the style of David Whyte. Click on Mr. Linky and join us for the last meeting of 2021 at the dVerse bar.
Image credit: Photo by Andre Moura from pexels

Inheritance Imperishable (inspired by 1 Peter 1:1-9)

On By dorahakIn Church, Epistles, Poems22 Comments
Golden cup St. John’s wort (Hypericum patulum) ©dorahak

          You, exiles, foreigners, chosen ones,

          You, faith-walkers, word-doers, beatituders1

          You, cross-bearers, joy-bringers, gospel-lovers

          You, sanctified, baptized, crucified, dead but alive to God

          You, raised up with Christ, co-heirs with Him2

          You, trial-shoulderers, sin-mourners, grief-carriers

          You, compassion-clad, mudlark scavengers of world-weary souls

          You, yourselves poor, despised, nobodies scorned3

          Beloved of God, glory-bound

          You

                    catch the light in golden cups of faith
                    catch it, taste it, see how good His Word
                    catch it freely with a living hope

                    catch sun-filled manna, multiplied grace
                    peace as it settles like a priceless crown
                    upon your head in splendor untarnished

                    catch the light with your open heart
                    newborn soul with ears to hear
                    Song of songs from Your Father’s throne

                    catch it as a prayer upon your tongue
                    sounding the depths of Love unknown
                    but for the babe in a manger born

                    catch the light and let faith loose
                    kindled incense upward bound
                    sent like sparks to heaven’s court

                    catch joy unspeakable, unbounded love
                    the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
                    come in power to dwell with you

1 Peter 1:9
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,
so that the tested genuineness of your faith–more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire–may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

1The Beatitudes are characteristics and blessings listed in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:1-12

2Romans 8:16-17 “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

31 Corinthians 1:26-29 “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”

section in bold italics:
Sammi's weekend writing prompt: 52 words, "Mudlarks"
Eugi's weekly prompt: "Compassion"
Have a blessed First Sunday of Advent everyone!

Lilies of the Field

On By dorahakIn Church, Photography, Poems52 Comments

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (Luke 12:27)

There is no nonsense about them
These increments of light
Sun-warmed stalks and petals,
Reducing to ornate shabbiness, palaces and temples,
Gaudy shacks of industry, mirrors of acquisition
While these Easter-birthed seeds burst otherworldly
All-gathering the vindicating Light
The Being uncanny borne by fragile forms, mortal all,
Sometimes dowdy, bent, dreary,
Sometimes bold, speckled, flashy,
Zealous, winsome, or hard-pressed
Between cracks of broken pavements
Yet there all the same:
Seven thousands of unbowed knees
Introduced by design, awakened, sent out
As an offense to be discarded or tolerated,
Eliciting smile, laughter, scorn, booted heel,
These refugees offering refuge immortal
These exiles rushing homeward
This desire of sun:
These lilies of the field.

For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness. (Psalm 26:3)

[And the LORD said to Elijah:] “Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” (1 Kings 19:18)

Björn at dVerse prompts us to write using a conceit:"A conceit is defined as an extended and complex metaphor that creates that apart from creating an element of surprise. If a metaphor is used to enhance imagery the conceit is better suited to describe an intricate metaphysical or emotional subject." Click on Mr. Linky to read and join in!

Cee's FOTD (Flower of the Day) November 4, 2021: Daisy
Click on any image above for a slideshow. Images ©dorahak

Gospel Truth

On By dorahakIn Poems28 Comments

I know this music, she said,
her bow singing across the riggings of the ship,
vibrations of string, quivering, a Stradivarius
on seascapes wild, Colmcille’s blessing on her lips.
Her petaled fingers close on each note, wind-whipped,
prayer stinging her eyes, cutting grooves calloused
by play, tonal cry of pregnant labor for a birth
where words and sounds attuned once only to elemental
spirits, now midwife new life, the dead burying the dead,
but the people of the Way hearing, come dancing.

Colossians 2:8
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Luke 9:60
And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Image Credit: cocoparisienne from Pixabay 
Ingrid at dVerse: Poetics Tuesday asks us to "write a poem using only concrete nouns, subject matter and imagery." Click on Mr. Linky and join in!

Apple-spent (A Compound Word Verse)

On By dorahakIn Poems32 Comments

An inch the moon moved, me eyeing
through sleepless lids I lay dying:
apple-fed.

Dim my sight, breath weakening
death’s poison ever strengthening:
apple-cursed.

Whispered prayers, hurried words of flesh
plead soul’s deliverance afresh:
apple-damned.

Darkness now floods the mind distraught
I would, I could, but I cannot:
apple-bent.

God’s Son whose flesh my guilt impaled
On cross for me o’er death prevailed:
apple-freed.

Photo by Tom Fisk from Pexels
Grace at dVerse challenges us today to write a Compound Word Verse, an unfamiliar form to most ous I daresay. She writes: "The Compound Word Verse is a poetry form invented by Margaret R. Smith that consists of five 3-line stanzas, for a total of 15 lines. The last line of each stanza ends in a compound word and these compound words share a common stem word which is taken from the title. (In the first example below the stem word is “moon” from the title “Moonlighting”; the compound words related to the title are moondust, moonbeams, moonsongs, etc.)

The Compound Word Verse (3 lines) has a set rhyme scheme and meter as follows:

Rhyme Scheme: a,a,b
Syllable/Meter: 8, 8, 3

Click on Mr. Linky to read more and join in!

The Makarios Life: The First Beatitude (Matthew 5:3)

On By dorahakIn Matthew, Theology12 Comments

Jesus said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

I’d been talking with her on the phone for quite a while. Now I had come to the end of myself, not simply physically weary, but spiritually. She was still anxious, overwrought, doubtful of her salvation, overrun with the voice of the Accuser undercutting the gospel she had known and believed for most of her life. Painful circumstances had brought her to the end of her rope. And I was at the end of mine, spiritual weapons blunted and defeat looming.

I was, in effect, poor in spirit. Impoverished, like the woman who said to Elisha: “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil” (2 Kings 4:2). Destitute.

But Jesus had said this was a characteristic of those in the kingdom. So I was good, right?

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5: 3)

Blessed/Happy: μακάριος “makarios” mak-ar’-ee-os (Gk.)
– “blessed,” “happy,” “possessed of peace (shalom), well-being”
— in the Amplified Bible: “happy, to be envied, and spiritually prosperous–with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions”

This is the very first beatitude, a statement of blessing. Jesus’ eight beatitudes are the dramatic opening to his teaching in Matthew 5, 6 & 7. The beatitudes are the tour de force of the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, consummate prophet, priest, king, knows how to grab the attention of his listeners by describing the happy, fulfilled life, the desire of every human being. He describes “the makarios life,” that is, the “blessed/happy life,” of those who follow Him. This life is available to every believer. The kingdom of heaven had already come with His appearance, even as it will come fully on the day He returns. As believers, we are citizens in His kingdom, and as kingdom-dwellers, we should possess all the qualities that the beatitudes describe.

The makarios life is the life of someone described in Psalm 11, and in Christ Jesus, we possess its qualities. So, as Jesus says, happy are we! And this first beatitude gives the foundational characteristic that leads to all the other attributes listed of the blessed life. Living the makarios life means we are first and foremost “poor in spirit.”

Well, I was certainly feeling my spiritual poverty on the phone with my desperately anxious friend. So why didn’t I feel blessed?

Simple. The kingdom of God is not a matter of feeling. It is knowing and believing and trusting that God’s word and promises are true. It is a matter of taking with both hands God’s revealed truth and turning around continually to Him, looking to Him, and relying on Him to provide for all that we need to apply that truth in our lives and our relationships. That is kingdom-living. That is happiness-producing. That is blessedness. That is the makarios life!

So I acknowledge my spiritual lack and gather the riches of the kingdom in Christ Jesus. And I give my friend what Christ gives me: His love.

Do you remember the song we grew up with as children, the one we taught our children? I ask her. We used to sing “Jesus Loves Me”?

Yes, she says.

Can we sing it together?

Jesus . . . loves . . . .

Her voice fades pitifully. I can feel her anguish, hear her cries of panic and uncertainty, powerless to hope, powerless to believe. She can’t bring herself to say “me.” Jesus loves ME.

She hardly has the breath to sing through her cries, so I sing it for the most part alone. She is silent while I sing. Listening. Then I ask her:

Can you, dear one, say “Jesus loves me”?

Patiently we repeat the words of the song. Simple words. Words at the heart of the gospel.

She stumbles many times, as if in unbelief at the immensity of the statement, that Jesus could love her, even her.

Yes, I remind her, Yes! Jesus loves you. Yes! Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so. Little ones — us, you and me – to Him belong. You are weak and I am weak but He is strong. Say it, dear one: say, “Jesus loves me.”

And when at last she does say it, substituting her name for the “me,” it is as if another gate of hell had been broken through, and the Accuser driven back in defeat.

It is a moment of great victory. You see, the kingdom of God is ours, the poor in spirit, in the person of Jesus Christ who loved us and gave Himself on the cross for us. And He gives us the kingdom He won for us.

I am weak but He is strong. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Sister! Brother! Preach it to yourself, to each other. We are living the makarios life. Hallelujah!

1Psalm 1
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

Sandy Foundations: A Zéjel

On By dorahakIn Poems54 Comments 
Grace at dVerse engages us to try a new poetic form: the Zéjel, 
a Spanish form with Arabic influence related to the Qasida 
and adopted by the Spanish troubadours of 15th century. 
The rules for the most common form:
1) 8 syllable lines.
2) stanzaic, opening with a mono-rhymed triplet followed by any number of quatrains.  
3) rhymed, the rhyme of the opening mudanza establishes a linking rhyme with the end line of the succeeding quatrains. Rhyme scheme, aaa bbba ccca etc.
Click on Mr. Linky to read more poems.
Image credit: Roman Odintsov.

Universes and grains of sand
Threading dreams, like daisies, by hand
Unstrung the quicker when more grand.

I sought the visions of a dream
Where suffering ends and life would seem
Heavenly, as every soul would beam
To see wishes fulfilled as planned.

Long I searched by day and by night
Like Eldorado by the knight
The end I sought grew dim not bright
As all my hopes came to a stand.

Now gray and old, I do decry
The day I fell for that old lie:
Apart from God to live and die
And build my towering hopes on sand.

Freedom

On By dorahakIn Poems38 Comments

There she was:
I realized she was me
crouched in the beating room,
hateful she, a thing that cried piteously
ugly she, crying stupidly, screwed up she,
she ugly, she stupid, she dumb, nothing deserving.

Dark, glassy the room:
no color, but a stink of loathing
a stink of putrid fear, foul abhorrence
disgust mirrored through the open door of midnight
huddled waiting for the next well-deserved blow.

The rustling of leaves:
standing many a time at the doorway dreaming
she was never there, the she that was me
this still-born excrescence, but now she, suddenly shielded
with the cloak of pure light of the Ancient One, holy,
whose right cannot be denied, his blood the price for she, for me.

Photo by Masha Raymers on Pexels.com

Romans 7:14-25 (NET)
For we know that the law is spiritual – but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin. For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate. But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me. So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Romans 8:15 (NET)
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.”

2 Corinthians 3: 17-18 (NET)
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

For dVerse: Poetics - Dungeons and Dragons, Sanaa asks that we "play a poetry game called,'Dungeons and Derivatives.' The idea here is to select one (from a list of eight sentences) and to change at least one word or more by replacing it with a derivative. Once you are done, unlock the muse from its dungeon and write a poem with the existing sentence." I chose the line from one of her poems which runs: “The rustling of leaves; I have stood many a time at the doorway of dreaming.” Click on Mr. Linky to read more and join in!

Journey (3)

On By dorahakIn Poems21 Comments

fare thee well, my sister
fare thee well, my brother too
well met this day to savor
a spell of time to share

what see you in my path
what see I in yours
a cross laid upon our shoulders
to follow in His steps

be gentle, sister, brother
ours is not to judge
called are we to tarry
in comfort and in love

kneel and pray o sister
kneel and pray today
kneel and pray o brother
Manna for this day

For He who died on Calvary
is Bread of life to us
and He has sent His Spirit
to quench the thirst in us

now we rise to journey
on our way again
the time that we have tarried
a well of joy has been

I’ll see you at the Wedding
I’ll see you with the Lamb
we’ll sing with great rejoicing
never to part again.

I had just completed the next to the last verse when I received the news that my dear friend, A. J., had passed into glory. It was as if all the verses that had been written before were not a coincidence but had been a preparation for this, a reminder to all those who hear that our journey leads homeward to our heavenly Father, to God our Savior. “As it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him’”— (1 Corinthians 2:9).

pax,

dora

image resource – https://www.lovethispic.com/image/56666/pathway-to-the-unknown
Join in Eugi's Weekly Prompt, "journey"

Outsider No More

On By dorahakIn Church16 Comments

Come weal or come woe
Our status is quo

– Old Saying

Let’s face it. Most of us prefer to maintain the status quo. It’s painless, well-established, safe. Anything disruptive spells danger, so we go along with those who maintain the status quo. They prey on our sheep-like need for a communal feeling of security even if it leaves us shorn of our freedoms. We want to be included, not excluded from the social norm, so we compromise, even when “inclusion” means branding others in Orwellian terms (see Animal Farm).

One of the many unsettling characteristics of our time, though, is the unreliability of what is status quo: beliefs and assumptions that once took several decades to change, now can change in a matter of years, even weeks as we’re seeing when it comes to scientific opinion on biological gender, psychology, epidemiology. A lot of this change has to do with the political hurricanes blowing around us. They pressure us into jumping onto the currents of zeitgeist so we’re not left out of the “loop,” because who wants to be on the outside looking in on the popular fads or dictates of the moment.

But it has become increasingly difficult to ride the waves of popular sentiment and opinion. We could find ourselves being outsiders in the twinkling of an eye, the mob raging after us, “outed” for unpopular beliefs by our own families, friends, colleagues, and employers. Playing it safe has never been more dangerous than when sociopolitical tides shift rapidly.

“Choose the hill you want to die on carefully,” a wise man once told me. The problem? A terrain of equally worthy hills to make my stand.

No. That’s wrong. There’s only one hill to die on: Calvary’s rise where the greatest battle ever fought raged and one Man died the victor, defeating death once and for all to rise again in glory, and reign over heaven as one day he will over all the earth. In the meantime, he is sovereign over individual moments of history, personally and collectively.

As a Christian, that puts me on the wrong side of history according to the prevailing status quo. But as the Bible tells me, I’ve always been an outsider in this world, a stranger and a pilgrim. I should be ill at ease in a society that tells me that my security and comfort come first. And one day I may have to die on this hill, as an outsider, as Christ Jesus did outside the city walls.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20

Truth is, with my rebirth and new life in Christ, my status quo changed from the world’s to the kingdom of God’s.

And that makes me an outsider no more, but included in the most secure and eternal kingdom of all, peopled by sinners of every nation, ethnicity, and language, each washed in the blood of the Lamb, knowing a freedom from guilt and sin’s hold.

More than that, I am a child of God, known and loved, surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, united with Christ by the indwelling Holy Spirit. And on this hill may I die a worthy death to be raised on that day when Christ returns.

Hebrews 11:13
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

Ephesians 2:19
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God . . . .

1 Peter 2:7-12, 21-25
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. …
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

A Better Life

On By dorahakIn Poems, World12 Comments

“Poetry makes nothing happen: it survives”¹
unlike young Icarus² who would fly to freedom
under the belly of a giant whale ascending
but he plummeting, free-falling, down to his death
while a world watched, still watches in horror
through that silver screen of the mind’s eye
as of an oracle that survives in the folds of memory
forecasting doom, like the poetry his heart sang
of a better life, a New World of winging hopes
now a land in chaos helmed by venal fools
where yet survive as in the Ark the few
whose hope shies not away
in whom Life supplants death
to whom Bread is provided and thirst quenched
whose city is built not with human hands
whose cornerstone is the Lamb that was slain.

1From W. H. Auden’s “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”

2On Monday, August 16, 2021, seventeen-year-old Zaki Anwari fell to his death after clinging to a US military plane taking off from Kabul as he tried to flee the Taliban takeover. He was one of several Afghans who rushed onto the tarmac of the capital’s airport and desperately held onto to the side of the C-17 aircraft before takeoff, captured in a widely-shared video that encapsulated the chaos of America’s exit from Afghanistan. A member of Afghanistan’s National Youth Football Team, Anwari was described by a spokesman for the sports federation as “kind and patient. He had no hope and wanted a better life.”3

Don’t Lose the Plot

On By dorahakIn Church24 Comments

Right now while I’m writing this, there are around 15,000 Americans in Afghanistan with no way out. Taliban insurgents have cut off access to the airport while our “woke” military leaders and diplomats are in effect begging “non-inclusive” terrorists to allow safe evacuation. Meanwhile, dictatorial domestic policies on the vaccine front don’t reflect either the data or the science, with the emergency vaccines themselves proving more and more ineffective (even harmfully ADE), except in satisfying greedy pharmaceutical companies that have never seen so much money in their lives (not to mention their political benefactors). The Biden administration has proved itself to be more of an incompetent, greedy, dangerous morass of idiocy than what they and their allies in the media and big tech daily branded the previous administration’s domestic and foreign policies.

I think we can spot a narrative failure when we see one. And we’re seeing more than one.

If only we could sit back in our armchairs and relax. But we can’t. Both on the domestic front, where liberties are daily being eroded, and the international front, where terrorists have been given a new lease on life thanks to Afghanistan, Americans are under attack. And though for the good of our children and our neighbors we must pray and strive to be vigilant at all cost, we cannot deny that we are under increasing threat, especially as Christians. We are living with moral erosion and Marxist hegemony in every major American institution. The political and socio-cultural agenda of the far-left has advanced far faster than they themselves could have foreseen, thanks to the money pouring in from big tech as well as its effective monopoly of social media platforms. Their unholy narrative advances.

There’s plenty of cause for fear. So why aren’t we afraid?

We aren’t afraid because all human narratives, the meta-text of civilizations and empires, fail. Any good history book tells you that. But more importantly, the Bible tells us that. Kingdoms come and go. But as chapter 2 of the Book of Daniel tells us so graphically through the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, only one kingdom overtakes them all and is eternal. God’s kingdom.

Don’t lose that plot in all the frenzy that surrounds us. God is sovereign. Jesus is King. His kingdom has come in the hearts of every believer and is coming as we proclaim it and will come when He returns.

Even as we long for Christ’s return, let’s not let any narrative of fear take control of us. In Christ we are already victorious. Hallelujah! All glory be to God our Savior!

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

As it is written, “For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us!

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35-39 (NET)
Text: Jan Struther 1901-53. Hymn tune: SLANE (Traditional Irish Melody)

Easter Morn

On By dorahakIn Poems21 Comments

Grave clothes left behind
see death’s dominion broken
in an empty tomb

Light the air, so bright
silent glory transpiring
the King ascending

John 11: 25-26
“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’”

Rebirth

On By dorahakIn Poems21 Comments

For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
— Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man”

There ought not to be anything but that my mind has ordered it so —

So I had been taught — for the mind is designer

Reality but the by-blow, bastard child that diminishes as I diminish

But that the Emperor of Ice-Cream has clay feet

Which stand on eternity’s threshold eyeing a feast.

There the bread and wine of Thy design

Grain and grape sweetly lies upon the tongue

To “taste and see the goodness of the LORD”

Yet nothing tasting if not sanctified by Thy Word

Blood spilled and body broken

Spoken gospel of love heard by a few

Who once nothing being are born in You

Till nothing become sons and daughters

Alive to You.

Originally posted on This Jolly Beggar.

Last Year’s Snow

On By dorahakIn Poetry17 Comments

When last year’s snow is slow to go
The chill hanging on, no mellow glow
Arrives, freeing wintry branches and briers
Beneath the ice like frozen desires.

So may our hearts harden, slow to thaw
When too long we don’t withdraw
Our gaze from yesterday’s wrong
Mistrusting forgiveness for which we long.

Then what loss we bear to gain instead
A bitter disbelief in what had once been shed
Where warm blood flowed from pierced side
Christ’s sacrifice unheeded and despised.

Look up, dear soul, see who’s risen above
Healing in his wings to bear your judgment in love
He enthroned in power, has power to melt
Your shame-hardened heart, set free from guilt.

Absent in the Spring

On By dorahakIn Luke, Theology2 Comments

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

This morning I read chapters 12 through 14 in the book of Job, the words of a man alternately addressing God and his deluded comforters in the midst of his suffering. Immediately after, I read the first chapter of Luke. The juxtaposition of the two readings left a strange sensation, a net of chiaroscuro, light and shadow, the sunrise of salvation and the nihilism of pain.

Oddly, there came to my mind, Agatha Christie’s psychological novel, Absent in the Spring, and Shakespeare’s sonnet from which it drew its title.

Sonnet 98

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him,
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

Caught in the pain of loss, the poet’s world is colored by it. What used to penetrate his senses with beauty now sharpens the knife’s edge of absence. Everything is a shadow of what it once was or ought to be and he is deeply aware of it.

Not so the narrator of the psychological Christie novel. She is absent to her own loss, that is, she doesn’t know what she’s missing. For a brief time an awareness of her loss, her failure to “be there” for those she claims to love, all of life that she’s failed to see and missed, cuts into her consciousness. Her grief is almost unendurable and she is overwhelmed by regret. She determines to change and make amends. But the moment passes like a mirage in the desert heat. She returns to her narcissistic life “absent” once again, oblivious to the misery of those who need her the most.

The pain of loss absorbs Job’s consciousness. But he engages with God through it all. While his “comforters” try to justify his suffering, Job goes straight to the One who can get him though it. He will not “curse God and die” as his wife advises. He will not absent himself to his suffering. He will neither deny it nor flee from it. Instead, in his suffering he looks for God. He remembers who God is. He knows that whatever the season, the summer of abundance or the winter of loss, God is unchanging, steadfast in love and faithfulness and sovereign in power. This knowledge emboldens Job and shores up his hope so that he doesn’t fall into the despair with which Satan  tempts us during hard times.

It is the first chapter of Luke that puts it all in perspective. This is where Christ’s birth is announced. Zechariah breaks into a joyful song of expectation and Mary bursts into a paean of praise as her spirit rejoices in God her Savior. Jesus’s birth breaks into history, the history of the world and our own personal history. His birth is pivotal to our understanding of temporal loss because His birth is the moment in time when the eternal becomes more real, more true, more present than absence caused by loss, whether the loss of health or loss through death.

His presence overtakes the absence. His reality in history, in the flesh, through His death and resurrection, overshadows everything. Eternity trumps the temporal. And by the word of God through the Holy Spirit we glean it daily as God who suffered here on earth suffers yet with us, making more real to us the glory that awaits us when we see Him face to face.

Praise God for that day!

Job 19: 25 (NASB)
“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth.”

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (ESV)
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Hebrews 2: 14-15 (ESV) 
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.