Poems

You have stood the test. Where others might cave in you pick up the pieces.

Dear Father-Mother, open my eyes to see that the love with which You fill my heart is practical and untiring. In Your ever-present gentleness and upholding approval, wash away obstructing what/will/they/think/of/me fears, to let my thought-window be clean for Your warmth to shine through.

A voice echoed from a godless land, you know the place. Where even relentless matter makes no sign of being, where all is nothing and cries cannot stir it, they tear only against themselves.

Don't say there is no interest here that there are too many distractions and attractions out there somewhere or that Sunday morning is a too-tiring time. Know instead that this rich tapestry of truths is so rewarding and attractive that anyone can see it's the very fabric of reality; that all do understand and hear the voice within that impels progress, saying, "No matter whether you are just new, or have come a long road of waiting, understanding is not linear or constrained to time.

To him that overcometh will I give.

Out of the morning air your words dart with Love's intention to the heart lightly together shifting from tone to tone, from dear to dare. You show me how the supple syntax of God's love for man is like this bright phrase of sanderlings flitting low over the sea coming now to invade the waiting shore of my need with rhymes of wings—with sudden swoop and dive, with soar and belly-up, loop-over, glide: five birds in flawless formation moving as one unerringly wing to wing, wave after pluming wave.

To hear the sounds of Soul Be silent as a star; As still as a stone; As mute as a mountain. With no noise the dawn breaks; With no sound the bud becomes a blossom; With no murmur A ray of light shines in everlasting splendor.

Sand, rock ground to dust, eager to shift, to blow with the wind, conforms under pressure and flows every way. Yet the furnace of fervent desire to be and do good can melt it to rock again, the more majestic formation that resists fragmentation, providing foundation for Christ's church, the solid conviction to build upon.

We are His, the flock of His good pasture. Love it is that seeks us out, enlightens and delivers us, gathers, feeds, and folds us, values each, keeps us safe in the gracious place of His serenely wise and loving presence.

Alone and newly arrived in a strange city I went to church, finding new depths of home and refreshing draughts of family in the pure spring of that love that is Church. Barbara L.