Sweet Presence You are here. My soul drinks Of Your Presence. Here is sweetness pervading, Time with no measure, Eternity kissing the moment, Stillness, though fleeting. Your touch stirs the life of me. I want to dance, Charged with new vigor. I should simply gaze on You But the power of life Is hard to […]
Flowers Without Fruit Prune thou thy words; the thoughts control That o’er thee swell and throng;– They will condense within thy soul, And change to purpose strong. But he who lets his feelings run In soft luxurious flow, Shrinks when hard service must be done, And faints at every woe. Faith’s meanest deed more favor […]
It Takes Families To Raise A Village Men with guns surround the powerists’ vehicles. Mothers, loving, unseen behind bulletproof glass, Their children laughing above run-flat tires, Dark vehicles in caravan, racing through red lights, Unimpeded. Happy on the way to school. The mothers talking, motherly, About goodness, and love, and Daddy and cousins. The mothers […]
Beside my desk, seashells Show evidence of life outgrowing the old self and discarding hard protective layers that once encompassed vulnerabilities. Praise the Lord! You have risen from the grave condition of mankind and found Yourself, buoyed in the Spirit but anchored in us, Your blessed Body on earth. © 2016, Mary Harwell Sayler
Some Like Poetry Some – thus not all. Not even the majority of all but the minority. Not counting schools, where one has to, and the poets themselves, there might be two people per thousand. Like – but one also likes chicken soup with noodles, one likes compliments and the color blue, one likes an […]
Live Henceforth in My Love Blessing full and overflowing Pour over me, Around me, And though and through. It is You, Who plans for me, Accomplishes this work, And I , For my part, Desire, And yield, My whole life, Loving You. ©2013 Joann Nelander
Get this: Wealth, fame and success don’t make us happy, but strong relationships do. That’s according to a 77-year-long Harvard Study of Adult Development that I read about in The Independent. The study began in 1938 with 724 men from two distinct groups. The first group included 268 sophomores from Harvard. The second group included […]
Suffer I can still endure the minutes, fix the time, and set the limits Where there was no pain but cold, slow pain. If I sought some hope to borrow from a hint of a tomorrow, It brought pain again, pain again, and pain. It caught me, held me, ruled me and eventually it schooled […]
Hymn to Matins–Sunday TODAY the Blessed Three in One Began the earth and skies; Today a Conqueror, God the Son, Did from the grave arise; We too will wake, and, in despite Of sloth and languor, all unite, As Psalmists bid, through the dim night, Waiting with wistful eyes. So may He hear, and heed […]
Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders thinks he can wave a magic government wand, impose lots of new taxes and government programs and make the world grand. Reality has another notion. Take the minimum wage. Bernie says he’ll raise it to $15 an hour, more than doubling it. If I worked at a fast-food restaurant for […]
Miracle Fair Commonplace miracle: that so many commonplace miracles happen. An ordinary miracle: in the dead of night the barking of invisible dogs. One miracle out of many: a small, airy cloud yet it can block a large and heavy moon. Several miracles in one: an alder tree reflected in the water, and that it’s […]
Love’s Reach I reach for You With my life, All my life. It is not for naught, That You labored, Bore my sins. I reach for You With my thoughts. In the night, I contemplate Your Dying. Writhing in agony, Alone with hell’s phantoms, Blood called From Your flesh. More than a drop Spoke my […]
Reverses WHEN mirth is full and free, Some sudden gloom shall be; When haughty power mounts high, The Watcher’s axe is nigh. All growth has bound; when greatest found, It hastes to die. When the rich town, that long Has lain its huts among, Uprears its pageants vast, And vaunts—it shall not last! Bright tints […]
Going Home He came home. Said nothing. It was clear, though, that something had gone wrong. He lay down fully dressed. Pulled the blanket over his head. Tucked up his knees. He’s nearly forty, but not at the moment. He exists just as he did inside his mother’s womb, clad in seven walls of skin, […]
Sensitiveness Time was, I shrank from what was right, From fear of what was wrong; I would not brave the sacred fight, Because the foe was strong. But now I cast that finer sense And sorer shame aside; Such dread of sin was indolence, Such aim at heaven was pride. So, when my Saviour calls, […]
My Cry, Your Heart, My God Reaching for You in the Night, I marvel. What worlds my prayer spans! The darkness of Space and Ages Is penetrated by Your Light, Pierced by my cry of recognition. My will, like Longinian sword, Penetrates Your Heart, Tapping perpetual Springs. Hallowed walls of Flesh part To welcome me, […]
If I Had But an Hour with You If I had but an hour with You It would be as a dream come true To sit at your feet and gaze upon You ’Twould be joy beyond measure. But alas, it is not to be Not now whilst I am living. This joy, this joy […]
It was Thanksgiving and my then-girlfriend was meeting my family for the first time. Much to my surprise, all five of my siblings were able to be there, and we enjoyed – or so I thought – our usual holiday dinner with the typical excited-aggressive talking that Italians tend to do. Later that evening, I […]
Here, Now and Forever Here You are beside me. Here You are within me. Here You share Your Being as Bread for my living. Here I am believing. Here I am becoming. Here I receive Your Spirit as Life for my soul. Here we dwell together. Here we dwell in loving. Here we give, completely, […]
The Gift of Perseverance ONCE, as I brooded o’er my guilty state, A fever seized me, duties to devise, To buy me interest in my Saviour’s eyes; Not that His love I would extenuate, But scourge and penance, masterful self-hate, Or gift of cost, served by an artifice To quell my restless thoughts and envious […]
