Poems

In the secret place She saw the Son, The beloved, the only begotten one. "Follow me," She read again, "And I will make you fishers of men.

Are you listening, contemporary Jonah? There's that Voice again . Go warn the people, the people of Nineveh! Share what you have! Communicate! Turn them on with Truth! Yes, there's a ship at Joppa ready to sail to Tarshish, far away, safe Tarshish.

Far off beyond the windows of my grief I saw the garden. Children were there, barefoot, absorbed in games of French cricket.

A lecture heals when the cup of joy in your heart spills over into the community splashing heads of strangers neighbors loved ones with drops of comfort streams of Truth rivers of Life. Joy Dell.

How long the years— slow passing weeks—days—hours since first in frightened haste I broke away, fled Pharaoh's palace, in sympathy with mine own captive brethren. Yet I dared to hope: Surely for a great purpose was I saved from birth! But on and on the silent years marched by nor any sign.

So many roads lead upward to the fount of Love; So many reasons set one's feet upon the path. How was it once with you? Was there a day when through the window of your heart You glimpsed a view of God so stunning fair You scarce could trust its truth; And so, to see it better, opened wide die door And wonderingly walked through? Or did the terror of some tempest Send you stumbling down the only path of hope, Where, mute with fear, you found the Father waiting there? For each his reason, cloistered in the silent past.

Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Mark 15:34 I thought his lips winced with that hollow cry. It tore my heart, and as a crushing weight black grief pressed down across the faded sky.

Standing here like this, on a rough hillside in morning sun with Tiberias that way, at the lake's edge, and below, to my left, the few bleached columns of a Capernaum that is now no more than a dream glimmering brokenly in its fragile shade, I see—suddenly— Not a decorous congregation arranged in rows, and wearing Sunday instead of Everyday clothes! With altar; and ritual; and walls raised up, great stone upon stone, to separate and enclose. O nothing—nothing like that, at all! For here really here not embalmed in a tale! somebody daily walked about.

They stand, but not because, of old,     A prophet tuned his inner hearing Into eternity, and heard. They hold     Steady against the windy veering     Of ancient sin and modern sneering— The golden calf, the yellow press—     Simply because, diverse, cohering, They are the rules of happiness.

"Master, where dwellest thou?" The Master's quick response to this direct inquiry was the Christly invitation, "Come and see. " As if he had said— implicitly, "If you would discern true consciousness, man's spiritual habitation, follow me.