Category Archives: poetry

High Holy Words

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1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life,[a] and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.[b]

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own,[c] and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,[d] full of grace and truth.

These are high holy words in this passage, themselves full of grace and truth.  One may well tremble as one reads them – I often do.  

It is well to heartfully reflect this passage on a day of triumph and celebration, like today, the Feast of the Incarnation of God.  Yet it is also a passage to draw strength from, in times of gloom and darkness, of despair and crushed hopes.  Over and over again in our life, we must be reminded and we must remember that The Light Shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not, does not, and never will overtake it.  This is the Great Truth of God, the insight of faith.  The true light, that Light whose smile kindles the Universe, which enlightens everyone – it has come into the world and it is all around us, dancing in every atom, shining in every star.  

Hail the Sun of Righteousness!  May we who walk in darkness be a Moon, reflecting His Holy Light.

Merry Christmas to all of you.

Christmas is Today and Every Day

At the heart of everything is one love;

the love that gave birth to all of creation

is the same love that was born on that 

first Christmas morning, in Bethlehem,

the light that shone in the darkness.

That same love is the light being born 

in you each day, without ceasing.

So, open yourself to this light, and

celebrate the coming of God into 

this world in your darkness—for

Christmas is not long ago and far away,

but here and now, today and every day.

 – Meister Eckhart

Offered by Michael Giordano, in whom God delights.

Night of Nights

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Daily Readings: Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-20

While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel.

Luke 2:6-7, The Message

Night of Nights

One blazing star outshines the cosmos

Illuminating the winding path to blessing.

A single note rings true

And the celestial chorus begins a song for the ages

In harmony with all creation.

Glory to God in the highest!!

The one true God

One young girl chosen from thousands

to deliver the one gift of salvation

to an overburdened world.

One tiny being,

An only son,

One last chance…

Night of Nights

Offered by Debbie Hill, in whom God delights.

God With Us, God Among Us

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Daily Readings: Psalm 42; Isaiah 29:17-24; Acts 5:12-16

Dignify those who are down on their luck; you’ll feel good – that’s what God does. Psalm 42:1, The Message

Christmas does not begin in perfection. It begins in longing.

Psalm 42 speaks aloud what many carry quietly into this season: thirst of the soul, exhaustion of hope, tears that keep time through the night. And yet this longing is personal. It is not a crowd crying out, it is a soul. God meets us not as a mass of humanity, but heart by heart. Christmas proclaims that God knows the shape of your ache and draws near.

Isaiah widens the circle. God’s promise is to a people being remade together. The land becomes fruitful, the confused gain understanding, the gentle are lifted up. This restoration is communal. God heals not in isolation, but in relationship, reweaving trust where it has been torn. Christmas announces that no one is forgotten and no one is restored alone.

Then Acts shows us what God-with-us looks like when faith becomes flesh in the world. The people bring the sick into the streets. They carry one another. They make space. Healing happens in public, shared places. God works through proximity, through hands willing to lift, through doors left open, through a community daring to believe that mercy belongs to everyone. The miracle is not only that shadows heal, but that people place one another where healing can happen.

This is the church revealed at Christmas, not a building lit beautifully, but a body moving together. A community that holds sorrow without fear, joy without possession, and hope without conditions. We need one another because God has chosen to come among us that way. God shows up personally, but never privately. Grace always makes room.

So, this Christmas, let us bring our thirst,

our weakness,

and one another.

Let us be the place where despair is carried,

where understanding grows,

where God is encountered

not alone,

but together.

For Christ is born not only to us, but among us. 

Community, by Donna Eby

God With Us, God Among Us

We come thirsty,

souls dry as winter fields,

carrying prayers worn thin by waiting.

You meet us there

not as a crowd,

but as hearts called by name.

You hear the ache behind our songs,

count the tears we never learned to share.

Still, You draw near.

Still, You say, Hope lives here.

You promise what we cannot yet see,

barren ground turning green,

confusion loosening its grip,

gentleness finding room to breathe.

You restore not one by one,

but side by side.

You are born among us,

in streets where the fragile are carried,

in hands that lift what cannot walk alone,

in shadows stretched by faith and trust.

Healing moves through closeness,

through courage,

through love made visible.

You show us we need each other.

That grace is not hoarded,

that mercy makes space.

The church is not walls or words,

but a people who carry,

who wait together,

who believe no one is beyond Your reach.

So, hold us, Christ,

as we hold one another.

Let our longing become prayer,

our gathering become light.

For You are not only born to us,

You are born among us.

Offered by Donna Eby, in whom God delights.

What A Dream I Had…

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A man waits in the shadows…

I held your hand…

Slow down, you move too fast…life, I love you…

and the shadows wash the room…cast in our indifference…and you read your Emily Dickenson, and I my Robert Frost…

Home, where love lies waiting silently for me…

Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine…

It’s poetry set to music – the voice of an age of war and protest, the voice of life seeking fulfillment. It tugs at my soul, asking questions of life and meaning. Do I sleep, unaware of the clarion call? Of course, I do. Do I move through my days too fast/quickly? Certainly. Haunting lyrics, in the best sense. Gentle, tuneful, beautiful: the union of voice, meter, key, and word. The same could be said of almost any album Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel created. I chose this one because I sang most of these songs in high school chorus.

What a wonderful introduction to existential questions and a glimpse of what is sacred and usually overlooked. I’m quite convinced that it’s one of the reasons I asked the questions that guided much of my seeking God’s face in those around me.

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme, Simon and Garfunkel, Columbia ia Records, October 10, 1966.

Can Anyone Hear Me?

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Goodall Prayer

Are my prayers heard by a loving creator who continues to create and sustain the life of this universe? Am I talking to myself, trying to convince myself that there’s more than emptiness and random encounters involved in the life I live and the life that surrounds me?

A yes to the first question brings peace and the strength to make of my life something holy.

A yes to the second is a doorway to a profoundly anxious loneliness.

I trust in the Great Spiritual Power. How else can there be so much love and beauty among all the heartaches and pain?

For All Life

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A Prayer for World Peace

Jumping worms have invaded Vermont. They aren’t the helpful kind of worms that improve soil. Instead, they drive out native species and damage forests. They are causing enough damage that the state of Vermont has put out warning flyers. Because I’m installing a couple of raised beds, they may become my problem soon enough.

I’ll do my best to prevent an infestation – checking plants and soil for worms and eggs and keeping a watch on everything after planting. But if I find these jumping worms, I’ll have to make a choice: kill them or let them decimate the local environment. Loss of life will occur, by my direct action or my inaction. I hope I never get to the point that it becomes an easy choice.

[This is part of an ongoing series. Click ThreeP’s above for more in this series.]

World Peace

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She isn’t best known for her poetry or her praying. She’s known for the decades of research on our evolutionary cousins, the chimpanzees. But anyone who seeks to understand fully, and who seeks this understanding for the benefit of life, ends up living a prayerful life. It may not be outwardly religious, but it’s reverent. And it’s Jane Goodall’s words, paired with Feeroozeh Golmohammadi’s images, that will end our foray into poems, prayers, and promises.

With luck, this is all three…

A World of Common Things

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Pets. Untensils. Fruit. Clothes. These are the things that we touch and see and hear and taste and smell every day. Pablo Neruda wrote a whole book of odes to them: spoons, an onion, the cat, and a pair of socks. He celebrates how much they have added to his life, and how he loves them for that.

I love this collection of poems because it is clear how much he sees common things as life-enhancing objects of wonder. Not because they can make him happy in more than a fleeting sense, but because they offer a chance to express gratitude for life in a tangible way – deep, inner joy brought into words through a cat, an orange, French fries. Here’s the end of the first poem – Ode to Things:

O irrevocable

river

of things:

no one can say

that I loved

only

fish,

or the plants of the jungle and the field,

that I loved

only

those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive.

It’s not true:

many things conspired

to tell me the whole story.

Not only did they touch me,

or my hand touched them:

they were

so close

that they were a part

of my being,

they were so alive with me

that they lived half my life

and will die half my death.

Pablo Neruda (Ken Krabbenhoft, translation), Odes to Common Things, Ode to Things; New York: Bullfinch Press, 2010, p.17

Foundational Promise

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I’ve said the words many times to many people in more situations than I can recall. I’ve said them to friends, relatives, and strangers. Sometimes, they are casually spoken – other times, with an intention way beyond serious. It’s rare that I think of them as the promise they are, and then usually because that promise has been broken. I’ve fallen short of keeping the promise, and I’ve been the one on the receiving end. They are behind every wedding vow, contract, baptism, and social obligation. Trust and forgiveness hang on them, and love grows out of them:

I’ll be there.

[This is one in a series. For more, click Three P’s above]

Uneasy

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Absence

This morning as low clouds

skidded over the spires of the city

I found next to a bench

in a park an ivory chess piece –

the white knight as it turned out –

and in the pigeon-ruffling wind

I wondered where all the others were,

lined up somewhere

on their black and red squares,

many of them feeling uneasy

about the saltshaker

that was taking his place,

and all of them secretly longing

for the moment

when the white horse

would reappear out of nowhere

and advance toward the board

with his distinctive motion,

stepping forward, then sideways

before advancing again –

the same move I was making him do

over and over in the sunny field of my palm.

Billy Collins, Nine Horses; New York: Random House, 2002, pp.19-20

When I leave a particular job or community, I want to leave behind people who are more than capable of carrying on without me. I want them to be glad for my time there but not dependent on my presence or uneasy in my absence. I want to leave people stronger, not weaker. I want them to welcome the new person who takes my place, anticipating the new adventures she or he will bring. New possibilities will come with my departure (saltshakers bring new ideas and opportunities).

It’s a wonderful truth that doesn’t get enough attention: everyone is irreplaceable, but someone else can surely do the work.

What is true in work is also true in life. When I go, I want to leave behind a world stronger for my having visited, and more than capable of joyfully moving on without me.