Inspirational verse submitted by readers.
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Poems
Our Father-Mother God Holds us in Love’s embrace, We cannot stumble, fear, nor fail While in this cherished place; But glow with noontide glory Reflecting radiant Soul, Immortal, perfect, beautiful, God’s man—divinely whole! —Dilys Bell.
the lion will lie down with the lamb all that gnaws stalks preys consumes will give up the surrender will be silent no fanfare: it is the moment when —self-aware— we come to ourselves uncompromised unravaged pristine an undisputable joy about us — Joni Overton-Jung.
Matthew 14:20 Father, thank you, for what seemed so inconsequential— those small, unused, unshared ideas. In gratitude we witnessed release from lack and conception grew to sufficiency for all.
Can you swaddle Love in burial clothes? Or bind up Truth in knots? Tie a napkin on Mind’s face? Hide the expression of God? —Imprison Spirit in a tomb of rock? —Mourn Soul as forever lost? Love’s idea, eternal now, infinite and free, is never bound in clothes of lies—of physicality. Listen! “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
I am God’s perfect child No sin, no fault, no stain. Innocent in every way I bear my Father’s name.
I thank Thee, Lord, that Thou art all-enfolding, Almighty cause of universe and man; With boundless love forever safely holding All being whole and perfect in Thy plan. To Thee, O God, with humble thought ascending, I turn in trust, when ills and woes assail.
I was in need of the harbor— the calm just beyond the breakwater, a refuge. Yes, the worst of the storm had passed, And yet the waves threatened still, pushed on from somewhere far off shore.
There it was, that symbol of Truth shining brightly above the darkness of worldly ignorance, fear, and sin. That star was there for everyone to see— yet how few were the followers who looked up and continued on their search for its source.
Mortal sense contradicts Spirit, tempts human thought to believe the absence of light it imagines, dark fears that betray and deceive. Yet strong faith, our undaunted sentinel, stands guard against the night, obliterates baseless illusions, rejoices in Christ, Truth, the light.
Here, at this humble water source a woman of Samaria encountered a man from Nazareth Where she saw him a travel-weary Jew thirsty, foreign he saw himself the blessed bearer of a gift eternally fulfilling Where she saw herself a scorned outcast mired in a shameful past He saw her the beloved heir of a fathomless wellspring of blessing And in the end, of course his view prevailed, and she set out, rejoicing— her waterpot abandoned— to lead even those who’d scorned her to that wellspring of the Christ —Joanne Otto.