One, then seven

After Hebrews 11:29-31 

Strangest battle instruction

ever: march around the city

once each day for six days;

not a word to be spoken

during each day’s march.

Not a word. Silence rules.

Then march around the city

seven times on the seventh day.

When you hear the trumpets,

shout with a great noise.

 

In truth, this has less to do

with the physical effects

of a march and more to do

with obedience, even if it’s

obedience to strange commands.

And the people, having been

tested and refined for 40 years

of wilderness, obeyed.

The walls fell.

The battle was won.

The battle was won

before the walls fell.

 

Photograph by Hasan Almasi via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Where Does Mission Happen? – Seth Porch at Desiring God.

 

The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Poet Julie Stevens – Paul Brookes.

 

The Weeds – poem by Seth Lewis.

 

The betrayal

After Hebrews 11:29-31 

Of all the people

inside the city who

might have understood

and betrayed, who would

have expected a prostitute,

the one who concealed

the spies, lowered the scarlet

thread, protected herself

and her family, with fires

burning around them,

the cries and screams

of people being killed

in their houses and in

the streets. They huddle,

safe but terrified, expecting

the door to fly open

at any moment, chaos, and

destruction flooding

around them. The door

remains closed, unmolested,

because the prostitute 

believed and had faith.

 

Photograph by Hannah Busing via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Do Our Churches Understand Faith & Work? – Hugh Whelchel at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics. 

 

Your Rights as a Christian in a Public School in 2023 – Joe Carter at The Gospel Coalition.

 

Poet Laura: The Butterfly Effect – Year of the Monarch – Dheepa Maturi at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Walls collapse

After Hebrews 11:29-31

 

They are a laughingstock,

marching around the city;

no attack, no siege, just

a march around the walls.

After the first time,

the first day, the people

of the city begin to laugh,

and mock, taunting

the marchers, who ignore

them and keep marching. 

The fifth time around, 

the fifth day, the people

and the city are beyond 

their mocking; now they

are bored, wondering

when these fools will

give up and march away.

The seventh time, and

the seventh day, almost

no one is watching. And

then those inside the city

hear the trumpets blow,

the ground shakes,

a great cracking noise

is heard, the walls

collapse. 

No one mocks.

No one taunts.

No one is bored.

 

Photograph by Square Lab via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

A Distant Shore – poem by Mitch Chase at Biblical Theology.

 

What It Feels Like – Wes Bredenhof on clinical depression.

 

August – poem by Kathleen at The Course of Our Seasons.

 

Some Post-Animated Protestations of Goliath of Gath – poem by James Sales at Society of Classical Poets.

Jericho redux

After Isaiah 30

You hear the army march

around the city, each movement

sounding a bell of terror,

ringing to announce what’s

coming. But no one sends out

a scarlet rope, the mark of salvation,

and the first pebbles begin

to chip from the wall,

the pebbles followed by stones,

the stones by rocks, and

in a great rush of sound and dust

the walls crack and crumble

and explode, disintegrating

into defenseless disaster.

The city is the offering, placed

on the altar of its own design,

the sacrifice of its people

the atonement.

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

And we wait

After Hebrew 11:31 and Joshua 2:1-14

And we wait.

We can hear the sounds

of the multitudes approaching,

the feet of thunder,

the shields of cracking lightning.

The city is closed, tightly.

My house, filled with family,

family who shunned me before,

my house is tightly closed.

The sign hangs from the window,

the sign of red like blood,

the sign of thread to bind.

Our lives hang by a thread,

by that thread of scarlet.

And we wait

as the sounds of thunder

circle round the city.

the noose tightening.

I see fear in the faces

around me, the soft cries

of the children,

the fear of imminent death.

I hear my mother’s quiet sob.

But the thread hangs

from the window,

binding us,

binding them.

Photograph by Circe Denyer via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.