Poems

"Self"—usurping interloper— Whether ignorantly vainglorious Or inflated with vain knowledge, abased By true humility. "I can do all things through Christ"— The rightful heir of The great I am; hence, "I go unto my Father": The only Ego trip! CAROLYN E.

Christ is God's power, ever present, present tense, His evidence. MICHAEL WILLIAM HAMILTON.

Alone? No! God and man, At one. Unloved? No! Father and son, Beloved.

From an altitude of boundless love, Jesus girded himself and kneeling down began to wash the disciples' feet— to wash away the dust of Adam, of life apart from God. Peter the impetuous: "not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.

A diamond in a darkened room Is nothing but a stone. It needs the light to sparkle— It cannot shine alone.

Brothers, lift your thought of cities Above the glitter and the stress, Above the crowded institutions And the urban wilderness— For through endless streets and buildings Breathe God's thoughts in millionfold, Breathes His Christ, the very presence Out of which our lives unfold. Throughout the plazas pressed with people Under pale, polluted skies, Between the flair and flux of fashion And the politician's cries— Moves our prayer, God's law in action, Moves the power of His Son— Brightness shafting through all error, Christ enlightening every man.

No desert dryness is too stark; For Life's eternal spring Will cause to bloom in vivid color, Complete, intact, each petaled flower— From Love's own watering. There is no heart so hurt, so hard, No life so sterile, bare, It will refuse God's gift of grace Or can resist Love's strong embrace— Full yield is present there.

Dear Lord, what future for one talent? Shall I bury it in words? Alphabets of admonition are cold solace for the soul. So, No! I'll not be a letter man.

The good I'd like to do— the neighborly act, the in-depth study of Truth, the healing prayer— seems bound in snare of time or incapacity. Until I see the good I'd like to do (more than inclination) is the stirring of the Christ in consciousness— never entombed by time or incapacity, but like the Christ, free— to burst forth, and be.

No wonder God loves man, reflection of His perfect being. When I turn aside from seeming mortal selfhood and humbly seek the image of God's glory— sinless, holy, upright, free— I love him too! MARYBETH LAKE.