Poems

I woke up heart drum-rolling to find no one, nothing and listened in night stillness for a sound, a footfall. "Who's there?" rang in my thought but brought only shadowed shapes, the murmur of house settling.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. (John 8:51) Never to die? O precious Bible promise— understandable, in degree, if I see myself now as Life's incorporeal, indelible idea.

How do I know it? I asked in anguish. How do I know that God loves me now? (Turn that around, it's upside down.

Human sympathy can be warm and comforting, like an angora blanket. It does much good.

Miracles and healings do not come in sizes. Life, Truth, and Love, never sized or measurable, are infinite.

When You call You are near. What You call I will hear.

I am fed up with all this depression, I am bored to tears with hopelessness, I am thoroughly sick of the world telling me The world's in a hideous, awful, miserable mess. For see how the good, the lovely, still abide, The sure, sound, spiritual virtues still endure: Trite as they seem, the benefactions stand Safe in God's grace to comfort and to cure.

When we withdraw to a quieter shore, we have not abandoned the sinful, sick, and poor to time or fate. Our Christ-compelled choice: that moment to wait on God.

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Wilt thou, he asked, "Wilt thou be made whole?" Response utterly devoid of recognition of him who queried, preoccupied with material remedy, with personal aid. The master Christian— undeterred— saw receptivity, purity, perfection.