Love or justice?

After 2 Samuel 18 

Is the focus to be

love, or is the focus

to be justice? Is

this life about grace,

or is this life about

righteousness? It

seems a cop-out

to say, well, both 

matter. They do,

but we want one or 

the other to rule.

Instead, we discover

a tension, a tautness,

and exhaustion to hold

both together,

at the same time,

as if they were one

entity, not two. The mind

boggles, the heart

struggles more. We do

not expect to be called

to this divine tension.

 

Photograph by Jon Tyson via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatly,” poem by Jupiter Hammon – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

Life is a Vapour. Enjoy It – Seth Lewis.

Love is

After I Corinthians 13:4-8 

Love is patient,

   even at red lights

   and in checkout lines.

Love is kind,

   even in the face of meanness

   and rude co-workers.

Love does not envy,

   even when losing a promotion

   or someone else taking credit.

Love is not arrogant,

   even when you’re proven right

   or get singled out for praise.

Love is not rude,

   even when you’re cut off in traffic

   or someone breaks in line.

Love isn’t my way or the highway,

   even when someone is wrong

   or refuses to listen to reason.

Love is not irritable,

   even when you’re overworked

   or didn’t get enough sleep.

Love doesn’t celebrate wrong,

   even when there’s no cost

   or the crowd demands it. 

Loves rejoices at the truth,

   even when there’s a cost

   or attacks will follow.

Love bears all things,

   even when the burden is heavy

   even when it hurts.

Love hopes for all things,

   even when it looks hopeless,

   even when hope is ridiculed.

Love endures all things,

   even the never-ending trial

   or when endurance feels like death.

Love never ends

   even when friendship goes wrong

   or when death arrives.

Love is.

 

Photograph by Fado Xd via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

I’m Not a Handyman – O. Alan Noble at You Are Not Your Own.

 

A Lamb and a Shepherd Among the Wolves – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Arabian Fights: The Rise of Islam and the Resilience of the Church – Donald Fairbairn at Desiring God.

Mutual humility

After I Peter 5:5-7 

We are to be humble 

toward each other.

It’s not about birth,

class, position, wealth, 

or anything else we

measure ourselves

and each other by.

In the age of me,

the age of self,

the age of ego,

it’s countercultural

to be humble

toward each other.

If the measuring

stick is Christ,

we have no choice

but to be humble

toward each other.

 

“The more we experience the gap between reality and what we know to be true, the more we grow closer to God. The more we see the gap between man and God, the more we reach for God.” – Pastor Clay Smith, August. 18, 2024.

 

Photograph by Elianna Gill via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

The mower and the nun – poem by Cameron Brooks at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin). 

 

Something Is Wrong: The Nine Contradictions of our Technological Age – Andrew Noble at Something Is Noble. 

 

The Temptation of Christ in Illuminated Manuscripts – Amelia McKee at Art for the Liturgical Year.

 

For God So Loved This Anxious Generation – Sarah Eekhof Zylstra at The Gospel Coalition.

 

Unseen yet loved

After I Peter 1:8-12 

Unseen, yet you love

him. Unseen, yet you

believe him. Unseen,

yet you exhibit joy

in him, joy inexpressible,

filling you with glory,

as you attain the goal

of you faith. Yet, he is

unseen.

 

So, too, the prophets. They

did not see him, yet 

they spoke of him. They

did not see him, yet

they predicted him. They

did not see him, yet

they knew they were

his servants, called 

to serve him. Yet 

they did not see him.

 

For the children of God,

glory follows suffering.

Always.

In the middle of tragedy,

there is glory.

Always.

 

Photograph by Luca Baggio via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

The Finish Comes Fast: Counsel for Running the Race – Tim Keesee at Desiring God.

 

You Already Work a Christian Job – William Boekestein at The Gospel Coalition.

 

The Magnificat – Mary of Nazareth at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

The Strength of Gentleness – Zachary Groff at Gentle Reformation.

You still love him

(for Charles Godwin) 

After I Peter 1:3-9

 

You haven’t seen him, yet

you love him.

You haven’t seen him, yet

you believe in him.

You haven’t seen him, yet

you rejoice in him.

You haven’t seen him, yet

you fill with glory.

And the result, the endpoint,

the outcome of all this,

the outcome of your faith,

the outcome is salvation.

Our faith is not 

our achievements;

our faith is the confidence

in God’s achievements.

 

Photograph by Jamie Street via Unsplash. Used with permission.

He turns his face

After Psalm 67 

He turns his face

towards us, staring

directly into our eyes,

our souls, our hearts.

He gets in our faces,

placing his hands

on our heads, staring

and saying he loves us,

he cherishes us, he knows

all our faults, our sins,

and what matters

is his love for us,

once lost, now found.

 

Photograph by William Carlson via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Balrog on the Bridge: Cultivating the Courage of Gandalf – Clinton Manley at Desiring God.

 

“Sailing to Byzantium,” poem by William Butler Yeats – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Helene Binet at St. Anne’s Limehouse – photographs at Spitalfields Life.

 

Blessing for Different Sounds – poem by David Whyte.

 

Two Owls – pome by Josiah Cox at First Things Magazine.

The persecution twist

After Romans 12:14 

Revenge and retribution

are out. When persecution

comes (and it’s inevitable),

pray for your persecutors,

and bless them. This isn’t

about an eye for an eye,

or one-upmanship or scoring 

one on the opposition,

or making them look

foolish or hypocritical,

even if they are. They do

just fine on their own,

thank you very much, 

and there’s no need

to pour lighter fluid

on their bonfire. Even

if you have the upper

hand, love them, love

your enemies, love

your persecutors, 

bless them,

pray for them.

 

Photograph by Elijah M. Anderson via Unsplash. Used with permission.

No pretense

After Romans 12:9-13 

Some instructions for the journey,

starting with love, the greatest

of all instructions. No pretense,

people; love genuinely,

from your heart. Hate evil

and hold on to the good

for dear life, your dear life.

Love each other; let your affection

overflow with each other. Honor

each other, because each of you

is made in the same image. Honor

and cherish it, and each other. Hope

is always there, so rejoice and

celebrate it. When trial comes,

endure them, and endure them

with each other. And pray, people,

like all the time. Help each other.

Open your homes, open your doors.

We are family.

 

Photograph by Gabriella Clare Marino via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Poets and Poems: Iain Thomas and “The Truth of You”

Iain Thomas was a writer and poet before Instagram, but it was that social medium that brought him to the attention of a lot of people. As in millions around the world.  

Thomas has published several books and poetry collections, including Every Word You Cannot Say, I Wrote This for You, I Wrote This for You and Only You, Intentional Dissonance, 25 Poems for the NSA, 300 Things I Hope, I Am Incomplete Without You, How to Be Happy: Not a Self-Help Book (Seriously), and [Dis]Connected. He combines prose, poetry, and art to make a powerful impression, and he’s been read and quoted by people like Steven Spielberg. Not to mention a reading of his work in front of the British Royal Family.

 

His latest work, The Truth of You: poetry about love, life, joy, and sadness, was published in March. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Submit and love

After Ephesians 5:21-33 

Submit to one another,

he says, the key

to our relationships.

Submit in reverence

mutual, he says, because

that’s how the One did it,

that’s the model, people,

submitting in love.

What the critics miss

is that love, as in love

your wives, is

a stronger command

than submission.

This love, this submission,

is a picture of something

far greater than itself,

fare more important,

something vital,

not matter how disguised

it becomes by rhetoric

and accusations and

anger and malpractice

and missing 

the whole point.

 

Photograph by Adam Winger via Unsplash. Used with permission.

That word

After Ephesians 5:21-33 

There’s that word:

submission. Horrors!

If there’s one word

contrary to the spirit

of the age, it’s that one.

And worse,

and even worse, 

is the idea of wives

submitting to husbands.

Paul was obviously

displaying his bias here,

an idiot, you say,

for his misogyny, shoving

women into second class. 

Therefore, everything

he said is wrong. Or, 

at the other political

extreme, let’s use 

the verse as a club

to remind wives

of the pecking order. And

so left and right scream

and rant and rave

at each other, doing

exactly the opposite

of what Paul commands:

submit to one another.

 

Photograph by Casey Horner via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Loving children

After Ephesians 5:1-20

Children are loved,

and children imitate.

Being loved is walking

in love, with a holy love,

a fierce love,

the same love given

to us, the love

of faithfulness even

to death, a love

which amazes,

which terrifies,

and we ask how,

how are we loved,

how are we to love?

Photograph by Lebin Yuriy via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Poets and Poems: Ollie Bowen and “On the Occasion of a Wedding”

The ancient Greeks taught the existence of three kinds of love. Eros was intimate love, including the kind caused by infatuation. Philia was brotherly (or sisterly), the kind felt toward a close or best friend. And agape was a more general love, bestowed freely on someone regardless of whether or not a relationship existed.

Poet Ollie Bowen embraces all three kinds of love in her debut poetry collection, On the Occasion of a Wedding. Dedicated to a couple as a wedding gift, the collection of 74 poems is drawn largely from her own marriage. And Bowen engages with the spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental ways two people can engage and express their love for one another. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Travel and Love: The Poetry of Catharine Savage Brosman

             

It was a chance reading of an article on poetry that led me to Catharine Savage Brosman. That, and a reference in the article to her having taught for 35 years at Tulane University. I found other poems of hers online, and I became so interested in my fellow New Orleanian that I ordered one, and ultimately three of her later collections. 

What I found was an inquisitive mind, ranging over subjects as diverse as flowers, theEmpress Eugenie’sflight from Paris in 1870, a New Orleans wine bar, False River in Louisiana’s Point Coupee Parish (part of the old Mississippi cut off when the river changed course), Antarctica, postmodernism (she’s not a fan), and the landscape and geography of western Colorado. 

And travel. A considerable number of the poems in these three later collections are about travel; almost all of her most recent collection, A Memory of Manaus, is about travel. And not only travel, but travel with and about people. Her remarriage to her first husband Patric Savage created significant changes in her life – a move to Houston and a joint decision to travel were only two. (Savage died in 2017 at the age of 88; I learned that he was born in St. Louis, where I now live, and he worked for most of his career at the same company I worked for in Houston.)

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Asteroid

After John 17:26

It was the asteroid, coming

seemingly from nowhere,

hitting or landing in an out-of-the-way

place with tremendous force

and impact, but almost unnoticed 

farther away, until the shock waves

and the wind and the waves

radiating from the center

embraced everything it their path,

and everything was in their path,

until nothing was untouched,

nothing left the same,

nothing left unchanged, fundamentally,

even the rocks and mountains,

the columned palaces and temples,

everything, everything was engulfed

in a wave of love,

everything, to the point that

the force could be resisted but

it could not be denied,

it could not be stopped.

Photograph by Bryan Goff via Unsplash. Used with permission.

An odd gift

After John 17:26

It’s a gift, to be sure,

but an odd one for all that.

It’s a gift that, as soon

as you receive it, you are

to give it away. And yet

it remains, even as 

you give it away;

it doesn’t disappear,

it doesn’t diminish as 

it’s handed away; even 

more oddly, the gift grows

as it’s given away, and 

the more it’s given away,

the more it grows for the giver.

It may be love.

It may be light.

It may be both and likely is.

But the point is the giving,

the whole point, and

nothing but the point.

This sounds like a riddle.

Photograph by Joanna Kosinka via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The reason

After John 17:26

You are filled with light

for a reason. The light

shines; they can see it

even if they do not

understand it. They see it

and are filled with desire

for it. This love I have

for you, this love you have 

for me, shines to touch 

them, shines to envelop

them, shines to embrace

them. Whenever that light

shines, especially at darkest

times, darkest places,

they see it.

Photograph by Maxime Valcarce via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Bearing the image

After I John 4:13-5:5

I love because

I was first loved because

I was owned and claimed.

I love because

I was given the image

to bear.

I bear this image

because I love

because I was first loved.

I bear the image

because I was made

to bear the image.

Because I love

I bear the image,

the image imprinted

   upon me.

Photograph by Saulo Mohana via Unsplash. Used with permission.