As we move closer to the time of remembering Jesus’ death, this week’s poem comes from Ukrainian-born poet Anna Akhmatova, whose poem sequence “Requiem” explores the grief that she and others witnessed of the height of Stalinist rule. One striking image that Akhmatova returns to continually throughout the sequence is that of a mother mourningContinue reading “40 Days of Mercy Week 6: Mercy at the Cross”
Tag Archives: the Cross
40 Days of Mercy: Week 2
In the last decade of his life, Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861) turned to a paraphrasing a number of Biblical psalms in a work known in English by the title “Psalms of David”. Many of his paraphrases take these ancient songs and prayers and apply them to the griefs being experienced by his people underContinue reading “40 Days of Mercy: Week 2”
Good Friday
Lent ends with a mirror: I am the mocker, the spitter, the thief. Like a child resenting their small role in the pageant, I greet grace with a petulant, What about me? This is me. My role is the soldier with the reed and the crown, the voice crying, Crucify! and, Messiah, come down. I’mContinue reading “Good Friday”
Christmas 2: Never Faint Nor Fear
Today, as well as the day for the year’s biggest sales, is also Boxing Day and, as the mysterious carol “Good King Wenceslas” should remind us, St Stephen’s Day. Most likely the Stephen commemorated today was the one martyred in the Acts of the Apostles, so one tradition of today is to sing carols thatContinue reading “Christmas 2: Never Faint Nor Fear”
20 Contemplations #7: Crux
…he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:8) Did He view the Cross from birth? Did crossbeams In the stable tell Him where He’d go? Did He see the Cross in treetops’ glow As He flew to earth from Heaven’s beams? Perhaps as Joseph carvedContinue reading “20 Contemplations #7: Crux”
20 Contemplations #6: At Creation
All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:3) First birdsong and flight; new heavens groaning; These things we cannot see. They precede Sight, consciousness. All we know, he exceeds: The Face behind the flame and the foaming. Nothing made without Him: He moves across AstronomyContinue reading “20 Contemplations #6: At Creation”
Lent: The Wait, the Weight 3
Held down by denial, oppressed by oblivion, as torrents break we fancy them a whirlpool. Nothing prepares for this crisis of self, when the spirit, crying, How long, how long? hears instead the call to crawl into the dust and weep. To whom have You dealt thus? Yet no better are we who bear YourContinue reading “Lent: The Wait, the Weight 3”
Lent: Man of Sorrows 6
And keep – keep me, keep watch, keep hope. The pains that crush me are like pricks beside Your agony, and yet You hold arms out as though to gather in more pain, more shame, and thus more me. Man of sorrows, what a name, what a scheme thatContinue reading “Lent: Man of Sorrows 6”
Lent: Man of Sorrows 4
Lay me down – slow me down and lay me down upon the Cross, in Jesus’ hands. Slow my heart and silence all the numb self-serving of my pleas; stifle pride, unlock the clench of fists deep in this fickle dust. Lay me down, my soul; lay down my soul in Jesus’ hands. Their scars haveContinue reading “Lent: Man of Sorrows 4”
Lent: Man of Sorrows 2
My God, my God: head full of wounds, You cry. My God, my God: what rupture in the godhead makes perfect veins now burst? What depth of love plumbs so low that even earth shakes at impact? My God, my God, have mercy. I wound my head and choose these depths; yet, Man of Sorrows,Continue reading “Lent: Man of Sorrows 2”
The Consolations of Writing 