Prophets of a future not our own! The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, It is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction Of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work....
The Mission of God
A window through thy grace
LORD, how can man preach thy eternal word: He is a brittle crazy glass: Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford This glorious and transcendent place, To be a window, through thy grace. But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story, Making thy life to shine...
Useless
When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent Therewith to serve my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide, ‘Doth God...
Good and bad fences
My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbours.’ Robert Frost (1874-1963), Mending Wall, 1914.
The Otherwise Gifted Shame Us
Shame is my name Lame are my feet Shunned is my face My fame is disgrace. Frances M. Young, Brokenness and Blessing.
Worth more ‘real’ than life’s ‘illusion’
This poet parasite of grief Lives on the falling, leaf by leaf, Of life’s illusion, glad to see The nakedness of misery. He probes his pen deep down within, To make a sonnet of a sin. A Realist, revealing less Life’s beauty than its bitterness. Yet purer eyes than his...
A poet’s crown of thorns
Poet, you are the life of this life, and you have Triumphed over the ages despite their severity. Poet, you will one day rule the hearts, and Therefore, your kingdom has no ending. Poet, examine your crown of thorns; you will Find concealed in it a budding...
The poet’s prophetic task
The figure a poem makes; No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. Robert Frost (1874-1963), 1939.
The poet’s prophetic task
The figure a poem makes; No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. Robert Frost (1874-1963), 1939.
The poet’s true task
Therefore he no more troubled the pool of silence. The figure a poem makes But put on mask and cloak, Strung a guitar And moved among the folk. Dancing they cried, ‘Ah, how our sober islands Are gay again, since this blind lyrical tramp Invaded the Fair!’ Under...
Christ in the weakness of his power
Grandfather sits and begins breakfast, Staring into is coffee cup…. He is a Calvinist to be sure, sound and wise if settled in his ways. He believes in hell, and firmly in damnation, but will not call it down. He sees himself growing out of this world: trying...
Your Kingdom Come
It’s a long way off, but inside it there are quite different things going on: festivals at which the poor man is king and the consumptive is healed; mirrors in which the blind look at themselves and loves look at them back; and industry is for mending the bent bones...