Meditation

This is my hope, O Lord:
To turn to diamond in the carbonizing glory of your presence.
Oblate me until all that remains is Christ in me;
It is an honor beyond compare to be a jewel in your crown.

If I were not already late for work,
Nor strangers were we on each other's path;
If questions smelt much less of creep than quirk,
I'd beg to take of thee a photograph.
Thy jacket colors all around thee ties
Together in aesthetic melodies.

—1/16/18

First Winter Winds

Smells are keener,
Frosted grass.
Wind is leaner,
Shards of glass
Whipping hair
With turbine's grace.
Frozen air
Benumbs my face,
Till at last,
The ancients said
Warmth was past,
The sun was dead,
Yet my favorite
Time of year's
When I cannot
Feel my ears.

God picked up a pebble
And covered it in moss
And the moss is aspens in the fall.
(Revised 9/30/18.)

"The righteous man runs into it and is safe."

Sherman Bible, 8/27/17.

Proverbs 18:10 says "The name of the LORD is a strong tower; / The righteous man runs into it and is safe" (ESV). Now there is a causal relation implied in there: that if a man is a righteous, he will run to the Lord and thereby be safe.

However, the mystery of salvation shows a deeper dynamic at play. We know that there is no such thing as a righteous man, except through faith (Rom 1:17). Faith could be defined as a reliance on God to do that which the faithful is wholly unable to do. As such, Proverbs 18:10 tells us that it is not through righteousness that we are made safe, but through running to God, who makes us righteous.

That is a wonderful promise.

Storm on the Beach at Night

There is no line 'twixt sky and sea;
A double veil of dark and cloud
Has conspired to hide from me
Infinity in midnight shroud.
Lightning flashes in the dark,
Is too distant, 'lumines naught.
Silence follows after spark,
Lost, except in lingering thought.
Drizzle, aimless, drops to rest
Tenderly on troubled tide
Even as the sky is pressed
With storm-clouds of the blackest pride.
They break! And with the breaking waves
Cacaphony aquatic raise,
But though the deluge soon has gone
The rolling sea continues on.

Komm, Jesu, Komm

Come, Jesus, come, my soul is weary;
My strength doth dwindle day by day.
Give me thy rest, for I am bleary;
Carry me through the bitter way.
Come, and for thee I’ll trade my strife:
Thou art the way, the truth, the life.

Let me but feel thy hand enclosing
And bid the world a last farewell;
Though life be but a mist in morning,
Yet shall my spirit ever dwell
Where naught but peace can e’er be rife—
With thee, the way, the truth, the life.

—Translated from Paul Thymich (excerpt). To Neumark.

Foolishness

A fool is what they brand me, for the love
I bear toward the loving Lord above;
They say I make him up my fears to ease,
But he has made me fear him, by his grace.

They call my Lord a crutch that I conceive
To rid me of the guiltiness I weave,
But I’ve been maimed by sin, and I would bet
A broken leg needs all that it can get.

If fools rush in where angels fear to tread,
Then I’m a fool, I’ll gladly have it said:
Angel nor demon never knew the grace
That with my Lord in heav’n secured a place.

—12/14/15. On 1 Cor 1:18-25.

(This was a vocabulary exercise for English composition. I may have enjoyed myself a bit.)

Nobody knows what menacing monsters lurk in the catacombs, but the rumormongers ply their trade ceaselessly, hoping to elicit a modicum of profit from it somehow. They say there is a panoply of riches hidden in a long-forgotten emperor's tomb. They have heard (from whom?) that the monstrosities with which the deeps are rife, are simply some paltry number of rats and maggots. They decry and deny the existence of the elusive flesh-eating ogres ubiquitous throughout the subterranean passages.

All who listen are fervently hidebound, of course. Who would so promiscuously propagate stories of these demons unless they had seen them with their own eyes? These hawkers of hope spawn a seed of doubt, however, and this chance of success, inchoate, draws them down, down, down, ineluctably, to the halls of the dead—most often to perpetuate their numbers.

Of such stock comes the quintessential treasure hunter, Iowa Smith. Propelled by desire, predisposed to disbelieve in devils, passive under greatest duress, will he be able to find the fabled Treasure of Caligula?

Daylight's End

The Solari shield-maiden pauses at the entrance to the cave. The sun is starting to go down and the evening chill is approaching. The cave is colder still. Should she light a fire and make camp for the night?

Her orders are clear. "Find the heretic. Protect the faith." She enters the cave. Its darkness soon envelops her, and she calls upon the sun for a little light. Her shield begins to glow. She sees that the cold walls are painted with crescents and blasphemies. She goes deeper.

Further in, she begins to hear a high, clear voice, chanting in worship: