"Advent is not a time to declare, but to listen, to listen to whatever God may want to tell us through the singing of the stars, the quickening of a baby, the gallantry of a dying man."
-from "Redeeming All Brokenness"
"Born one.
That's enough.
Jesus was born once,
for us.
That's enough.
That's love.
Love is once for all
for all of us.
Jesus will come,
He who was once born.
He will come when he will,
Love is once for all
for all. That's enough."
"We matter to God. We matter that much... That's the whole point of it all, that God cared enough to be born."
-from "Transfiguration"
"Come, Lord Jesus, small, enfleshed
Like any human, helpless child.
Come once, come once again, come soon;
The stars in heaven fall, unmeshed:
The sun is dark, blood's on the moon.
Come, Word who came to us enfleshed,
Come speak in joy untamed and wild.
Come, Lord Jesus, at the end,
Time's end, my end, forever's start.
Come in your flaming, burning power
Time, like the temple veil, now rend;
Come, shatter every human hour.
Come, Lord Jesus, at the end.
Break, then mend the waiting heart."
"Jesus should be for us the icon of icons, God sending heaven to earth, "Lord of Lords in human vesture." God has given us each other as revelations of divine creativity, and the ultimate revelation is in Jesus of Nazareth, the Incarnation of God into human flesh: carne = flesh. God enfleshed for our sakes. God's love offered to us fully and wonderfully and particularly in one person."
-from "An Offering of Love"
It was a time like this,
War & tumult of war,
a horror in the air.
Hungry yawned the abyss--
and yet there came the star
and the child most wonderfully there.
It was a time like this
of fear & lust for power,
license & greed and blight--
and yet the Prince of bliss
came into the darkest hour
in quiet & silent light.
And in a time like this
how celebrate his birth
when all things fall apart.
Ah! wonderful it is
with no room on the earth
the stable is our heart.
"Strangely I have found in my own life that it is only through a wintry spirituality that I am able to affirm summer and sunshine. A friend wrote me recently, 'Winter reveals structure.' Only as the structure is firmly there are we able to dress it with the lovely trappings of spring, budding leaves, rosy blossoms. Winter is the quiet, fallow time when the earth prepares for the rebirth of spring. Unless the seed is put into the ground to die, it cannot be born."
-from "Revealing Structure"
***this makes me think of this Switchfoot song ***
"Who is that tiny baby? Even the Creator, almighty and terrible and incomprehensible!... Whose arms encircled the world with ... grace."
-from "Falling into Sentimentality"
He came, quietly impossible,
Out of a young girls' womb,
A love as amazingly marvelous
As his bursting from the tomb.
This child was fully human,
This child was wholly God.
The hands of All Love fashioned him
Of mortal flesh and bone and blood,
The ordinary so extraordinary
The stars shook in the sky
As the Lord of all the universe
Was born to live, to love, to die.
He came, quietly impossible:
Nothing will ever be the same:
Jesus, the Light of every heart--
The God we know by Name.
"We are all asked to do more than we can do. Every hero and heroine of the Bible does more than he would have thought it possible to do, from Gideon to Esther to Mary."
-from "More Than We Can Do"
This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There'd have been no room for this child.
He did not wait... til hearts were pure. In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt. To a world like ours, of anguished shame he came, and his Light would not go out.
-from "First Coming"
Lord Jesus, in this fateful hour
I place all Heaven with its power
And the sun with its brightness
And the snow with its whiteness
And the fire with all the strength it hath
And the lightning with its rapid wrath
And the winds with their swiftness along their path
And the sea with its deepness
And the rocks with their steepness
And the child in the manger
Sharing our danger
And the man sandal-shod
Revealing our God
And the hill with its cross
To cry grief, pain and loss
And the dark empty tomb
Like a Heavenly womb
Giving birth to a true life
While death howls in strife
And the bread and the wine
Making human divine
And the stars with their singing
And cherubim winging
And Creation's wild glory
Contained in His story
And the hope of new birth
On this worn stricken earth
And His coming, joy-streaming
Creation redeeming
And the earth with its starkness
All these we place
By God's Almighty Help and grace
Between ourselves and the powers of darkness.
*** you may recognized The Rune of St. Patrick from "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" ***
"Cribb'd, cabined and confined within the contours of a human infant. The infinite defined by the finite The creator of all life thirsty and abandoned? Why would he do such a thing? Aren't there easier and better ways for God to redeem his fallen creatures? And what good did it all do? The heart of man is still evil. Wars grow more terrible with each generation. The earth daily becomes more depleted by human greed. God came to save us and we thank him by producing bigger and better battlefields and slums and insane asylums. And yet Christmas is still for me a time of hope, of hope for the courage to love and accept love, a time when I can forget that my Christology is extremely shaky and can rejoice in God's love through love of family and friends."
-from "A Time of Hope"
He did not wait til the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.
He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait
till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.
He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.
We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!
"Let us, seeing, celebrate the glory of Love's incarnate birth and sing its joy to all the world."
- from "Love's incarnate birth"
Finally, I feel like Jars of Clay and Madeleine would have gotten along quite well...
Hi, nice blog. I enjoyed reading your christmas poems. Anyway, i discovered your website while working on pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/kumar65/christmas-poems/. Feel free to check for more cool poems.
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