There’s always hope. We just need to weep and wait for him.
Judas, Peter
because we are all
betrayers, taking
silver and eating
body and blood and asking
(guilty) is it I and hearing
him say yes
it would be simple for us all
to rush out
and hang ourselves
but if we find grace
to weep and wait
after the voice of morning
has crowed in our ears
clearly enough
to break our hearts
he will be there
to ask us each again
do you love me
Luci Shaw
A Sunday poem for the beginning of this Holy Week.
Royalty
He was a plain man
and learned no Latin.
Having left all gold behind
he dealt out peace
to all us wild ones
and the weather.
He ate fish, bread,
country wine and God’s will.
He wore purple only once
and that was an irony.
Luci Shaw
Jan’s book, Circle of Grace, must be one of my favorite books of poetry. This Sunday poem is from another of her books, The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons.
I was introduced to Scott Cairns through reading his book, Short Trip to the Edge, a Pilgrimage to Prayer. I put that book in the category of books that not only are about beautiful things but are also beautiful to read. One I have reread and certainly will again. Here is a poem of his on poetry and how it serves us.
—After Pappas [ΝΙΚΟΣ ΠΑΠΠΑΣ]
Because of this poetry, which, like the Gospel
opens us to waves of unexpected dangers
and elations, which bids the condemned to loosen
his tie as he ambles to the wall to be shot,
and woos meandering millions yet to notice
the brother or sister teetering on the cliff,
compelling that we reach out a hand, deliver
those wretched, belovéd ones to safety, at least,
to momentary safety and, in that moment,
a passing sense that they are not alone; because
of poetry’s vertiginous capacity
to center one’s attention on what might make us
whole, and what might break us, spanning the desolate
hours as well as the blessed, and laving with honey
both corpses and the morning toast, even as it
raps upon the door, unrelenting in its claims;
because of this poetry, rising from the souls,
the ancients of every land, the generations
thereafter, all the radiant host, both famous
and obscure, offering their breath to the flowing
chorus circling the spheres, giving voice to every
exultation, every desolation, ever,
we raise our heads, and do not shirk, obliged to sing.
Sharing another poem this Sunday by Anne Porter. I think this was one of the first I ever read by her and made me fall in love with her poetry.
The Icon
Here in this icon out of ancient Russia
Brown as amber the little Mother of God
Holding her infant to her cheek
Is present to us
In all her wise
And peaceful sorrow
A forest hermit painted this
They say at night his face
Lit up the snow
He befriended robbers
And often gave
The bears his bread.
Anne Porter
Another poem from Malcolm Guite, speaking especially to those who feel like they are sinking.
The Christian Plummet
Down into the icy depths you plunge,
The cold dark undertow of your depression,
Even your memories of light made strange,
As you fall further from all comprehension.
You feel as though they’ve thrown you overboard,
Your fellow Christians on the sunlit deck,
A stone-cold Jonah on whom scorn is poured,
A sacrifice to save them from the wreck.
But someone has their hands on your long line,
You sound for them the depths they sail above,
One who takes Jonah as his only sign
Sinks lower still to hold you in his love,
And though, you cannot see, or speak, or breathe,
The everlasting arms are underneath.
Malcolm Guite
(Oops. I meant to schedule this for this coming Sunday, but made a mistake. I trust God will use it for you now.) This Sunday I offer you this bit of a longer poem by Gregory of Narek:
Refuge for my broken spirit lies in your
living incorruptible, constant hope,
that looking on me with mercy,
as one condemned to perdition,
when I present myself before your heavenly beneficence,
empty-handed and without gifts,
bringing with me the evidence of your untold glory,
I will remind you
who never shuts your eyes,
never ignores the sighs of grief,
that with your cross of light
you may lift away from me, I beg you, the peril that chokes me,
with your comforting care, the vacillating sadness,
with your crown of thorns, the germs of my sin,
with the lashes of the whip, the blows of death,
with the memory of the slap in the face, the neediness of my shame,
with the spitting of your enemies, my contemptible vileness,
with your sip of vinegar, the bitterness of my soul.
Gregory of Narek
A lovely, lovely poem from Malcolm Guite. I find it most encouraging at the beginning of this Lent. Lent can be a discouraging time for many of us because we are so aware of our obvious faults.
Through the Gate
Begin the song exactly where you are,
For where you are contains where you have been
And holds the vision of your final sphere.
And do not fear the memory of sin;
There is a light that heals, and, where it falls,
Transfigures and redeems the darkest stain
Into translucent colour. Loose the veils
And draw the curtains back, unbar the doors,
Of that dread threshold where your spirit fails.
The hopeless gate that holds in all the fears
That haunt your shadowed city fling it wide
And open to the light that finds, and fares
Through the dark pathways where you run and hide.
Through all the alleys of your riddled heart,
As pierced and open as his wounded side.
Open the map to him and make a start,
And down the dizzy spirals, through the dark,
His light will go before you. Let him chart
And name and heal. Expose the hidden ache
To him, the stinging fires and smoke that blind
Your judgments, carry you away, the mirk
And muted gloom in which you cannot find
The love that you once thought dying for.
Call him to all you cannot call to mind.
He comes to harrow Hell and now to your
Well-guarded fortress let his love descend.
The icy ego at your frozen core
Can hear his call at last. Will you respond?
Jan Richardson is a poet I discovered just a few years ago. My favorite book of hers is the one from which this poem is taken. She has a number of poems just for this day, Ash Wednesday.
The poem I chose for last Sunday–“Suspended”–reminds me of another poem, one I have posted before, but am going to do again because it’s always worth a re-read. Both speak of God’s garments and our touching them. In “Suspended”, the author’s “hand slipped on the rich silk of it.” In this one, Jessica Powers writes of holding fast to it, clutching it.
The Garments of God
God sits on a chair of darkness in my soul.
He is God alone, supreme in His majesty.
I sit at His feet, a child in the dark beside Him;
my joy is aware of His glance and my sorrow is tempted
to nest on the thought that His face is turned from me.
He is clothed in the robes of His mercy, voluminous garments–
not velvet or silk and affable to the touch,
but fabric strong for a frantic hand to clutch,
and I hold to it fast with the fingers of my will.
Here is my cry of faith, my deep avowal
to the Divinity that I am but dust.
Here is the loud profession of my trust.
I need not go abroad
to the hills of speech or the hinterlands of music
for a crier to walk in my soul where all is still.
I have this potent prayer through good or ill:
here in the dark I clutch the garments of God.
Jessica Powers
Witnesses to Hope 