Poems

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.

When Jesus was upon the cross, friends may have thought all hope was lost. The good he shared looked all undone, but, oh, the best was yet to come.

In the mountain of His holiness    Truth rejoices thought And Love is seen supreme    As reality is sought  Oh, let us climb the mountain    To reach the Horeb height The pathway thereof luminous    Through Christly inner light  A light so strong it cannot wane    Earth is not its source The law of omniactive Mind    Its operating force  And everywhere reflected    Affirming God’s domain Shines the brightness of His glory    An everlasting reign —G. Gershala Goldsmith.

Behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.   — Luke 7:37, 38  i may not  be welcome here but somehow cannot stop myself the Light calls out and light pours out of me— irrepressible offering to give give give every drop of thanks to let this love be rivers washing please … take, receive my hands my hair my tears my every inkling and turn them to  divine Love’s anointing blessing thanking how is it then that it is I who comes forth washed so clean? —Joni Overton-Jung.