Monday, April 27, 2015

Inflated Self Deflated

‘Be true to yourself’ the moral queens say
There’s no other Higher or Better foray
No duty to harken or summon to call
But interest of Self and seared conscience withal

Yet what wisdom flows from this stagnant infirm
This frame that succumbs to miniscule germ
With skin that is pierced by the simplest straw
And falters at winds or the water’s full draw?

Can this soul break the sun and its withering heat?
Or wrangle the cold and submit it to beat
Back the ice that breach trickling channels of blood
Or heap up the seas into bundles of flood?

I am but a frailty of lightless disgrace
Emboldening violence with wanton embrace
No command to halt all of Nature’s desires
Arrogance bowing with quickening tires

Be true to myself with no power at all
The one who can’t seize any honor or call
Which would bring any good to this cosmos or sphere
But the tribute of futile and foolhardy fear

This darkness that sets such a glowering stage
Shows glorious colors of the Author’s bright grace
Illumined against the blackness and dross
Shines the love condescending to the height of the cross

Your glory, O Soul, is not of your own
He sets His heart on the dead who respond as a stone
To make them alive by His sovereign grace
And call them, "Beloved", with warming embrace

7-14-14


Tuesday, April 21, 2015

What Stayed the Hand of Ancient Strength?

"Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him as they beat him.  They also blindfolded him and kept asking him, 'Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?' And they said many other things against him, blaspheming him."
(The Gospel According to Luke, 22:63-65)

Hammer and the anvil greyed o’er time and space and starlight made
By your expulsive word and trade when timeless arm of glory played

The sword which cuts through spirit’s bone divided up Orion’s home
Gleaming blade of light was shone enwrapped in Son of Man, alone

Face of swollen purple bleeds though you had scattered starry seeds
At mocking jeers of weakened knees you hid the fists which poured the seas

Power held within your breast bore shame and scoffs of worthlessness
“Restrained” is much too small address to wear such mercy thus expressed

What stayed the hand of ancient strength to suffer such perverse disgrace?
“Your will be done” to every length though vile spittle marks your face

For Father’s honor, glory, fame endured corrupt disgusted shame
That I, the swinger of the same,might be delivered by your name

An act of might never beheld as that of love which inward held
Your righteous power from war-cry yelled consuming fire which should have felled

Hanging stars and planets pale to strength of soul which did not fail
In torrents of injustice gale when God’s Son leashed and bridled hell

February 5, 2015