Some have gone to sleep at night,
Their souls secure within His grip,
The sins of yesterday, today
Already washed and cleaned.

Some have tapered slowly out,
Every last breath a long release,
The daily giving up of life,
The agony of gasping prayer.

Some are taken by surprise,
The unexpected thief at night,
The question and the gun’s reply,
The martyr’s sudden calling.

Some have gone with open hands,
Others clutching, grasping still;
And some have given up the ghost,
Others had it taken.

They know what we see in part;
They have completed what we’ve begun.
Is it we or they who wait?
Such questions soon will not matter.

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours…
(1 Corinthians 1:2)

All saints, and yet
The pagans quake
To see the lives that some saints live;

All saints, and yet
A man, we’re told,
Has taken his own father’s wife;

All saints, and yet
Hardened and proud;
All saints and yet
Stuck in our ways;
All saints,
And yet not saintly.

All saints, but some
Are snatched from flame;
All saints, and yet
Too close to fire
Some saints naively dangle.

All saints, and yet
Called to be saints,
All saints, called to be holy.

My case is null and void.
I have nothing to say.
At best I have my weak excuses,
At worst I have my lies.

And all the words against me lie
Pinned up to the church’s wall;
Every word the satan breaths
Says of me what is true:

That there is not in this world
Gold enough for me to pay
Or ink-pots full enough to blot
The copy book and let me go;

No years, decades, millennia
Of purgatory can make me clean;
The sins that pierce my ears at night –
They know the depths of me.

Yet in the book of life I see
This entry made beside my name:
That all the righteousness of God
Has been ascribed somehow to me;

And all the debts, the judgments passed,
Have been transcribed beside the name
Of Jesus Christ, the perfect one,
My shame transferred to Him.

My case is null and void, and yet
His blood blots out the copy book
Where all my lies, excuses and
Deeds of death stand rendered clean.

Thus we behold two illustrious Apostles contented scarcely to be mentioned in Holy Scripture: which celestial partial eclipse is followed up by their sharing one Festival between them.
(Christina Rossetti, Time Flies: A Reading Diaryj)

My zeal clamours for heaven,
Grabs it with its fists,
Wrestles glory to make it mine,
Steals the horizon and tames it.

But zeal that sits beneath heaven
And raises humble hands,
Is glorified, transfigured,
For seeking not its own:

The zeal that, like the silent moon,
Longs only to reflect;
That lets the dark horizon shine
To make the Son’s light known.

My zeal that clamours for itself
Dies faintly in the shade.
But zeal that lets itself eclipse
Will glimmer wild and bright.

Not all our of causes are lost;
Not all that are lost are beyond recovery.
Not all who stumble will stay down;
Not all who rebel have hard hearts.
Not all who loom over fire are yet burned;
Not all doubt is unbelief.

Not all who believe will stand firm;
Not every cloud brings rain.
Not every shepherd feeds others;
Not every autumn tree bears fruit.
Not every star brings bright light;
Not all who are shown mercy will believe.

But you: come to Him
Who can keep you from falling,
Who is in all of this your one guarantee.
All your lost causes and all your dead deeds:
Bring all to Him, who stands before all
Ages and seasons, lost causes and fires.

Bless the Lord at all times:
Though somehow the pain of blessing
May cut through you with its sword;
In your days of fear and anguish,
Bless the Lord.

Seek His face in every time:
When you see Him clearly and
When the sun obscures your gaze;
On the days of desert wandering,
Seek His face.

Trust His truth in every place:
In fields and forests, swamps and valleys,
The farthest place from concrete proof;
When the promise starves and dwindles,
Trust His truth.

Praise His name through every season:
When a captive, when brought home,
When in glory and in shame;
In the famine, in the harvest,
Praise His name.

Look to Him for your deliverance:
He has raised a cut-down tree
And made us like men who dream;
When your future’s dead before you,
Look to Him.

The naive child longs for peace;
The knowing adult smiles in condescension.
The dreamer in the flowers hopes
For that which realists know can’t be.
And all the wisdom of each age
Says what goes and what falls flat
And takes the pin to all fond hopes,
Bubbles burst with age and growth.

And progress fails; the god we hailed
Takes a taxi to the coast,
While somehow all our inner children
Kick against our walls’ best efforts
To contain our foolishness.
There is no reason, only this:
The deep-as-blood conviction that
None of this was meant to be.

And every century will try to
Change the topic or deny
That there ever was a problem;
And our hands can’t really be joined
While we let them hold to lies;
Yet this beacon glimmers with us –
That we should put down our struggles
And be reconciled, like children.

If I see myself reflected –
All my guilt and all my shame –
How can I help but weep to see
What I am before Him?

If I look Him in the eye –
Him, the brother that I scorned –
Can I bear to hold my gaze?
Can I let Him see me?

If He looks me in the eye –
All the glory in His face shining,
Fresh as day, alive from grave –
He shall rip my shackles.

If I see myself reflected –
Changed; made somehow new before Him –
I cannot leave my new reflection
And not be what He has made me.

I am in the process of going back and writing some poems that I missed earlier in the year, so that the final collection of these liturgical poems can start and finish as neatly as possible. Here is one for April 3 of this year.

More Clearly, More Dearly, More Nearly (For Richard of Chichester)

At the start or finish of
The day – of life – of every walk:

Thank You – Father, Brother, friend;
Thank You for all that You bear;

All insults and all burdens and
For all the benefits that flow.

And at every rise and fall,
Each morning and each going down,

I turn to You, to my Redeemer.
These three things, O Lord, I pray:

More clearly – that I may see Thee,
Though every day my sight grows dim;

More dearly – that I may love Thee,
Though every day my heart goes faint;

More nearly – may I follow Thee,
Though every step grows far apart;

These three things, O Lord, I pray;
On every new and final day.