Open A Cage

(Thank you Maya Angelou and Tina Sattin)

If you would know

Peace

Open the cage

Break the bars

Pink slip the executioner

Set the captive free

You may discover

Your own chains

Invisible

Weighted

Obstacles

To life

Slipping down

Below

While you

Return

To flight

Borne upon

the holy

Rush

Of God

Fear Not

Peace

Is a choice

Like a lily pad

Floating

Chooses to

Bloom

Choose

Your

Beauty

Surrender

To

Being

Born

From

Holy

Light

Romans 5:1-10

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. …

Peace With God

The place to arrive

Is

Also the place to begin

Every step

Every move

Peace eludes me

Not unlike

Job

I elude peace

Not unlike Jonah

I demand the return

Of my loved ones

Not unlike Martha

I live in fear

Without

Peace with God

Let me unclench my

Life

And begin the

Way of Peace

Force open my

Inner door

Peace

With God

Light a candle

For the journey

Peace joins hope

Fellow travelers

On

This

Advent Peace Protest

March

Migration

Pilgrimage

Odyssey

Marathon

Maranatha

Morning

Singing

O Come

O Come

1   Lord, you have been our dwelling place

          in all generations.

2   Before the mountains were brought forth,

          or ever you had formed the earth and the world,

          from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3   You turn us back to dust,

          and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”

4   For a thousand years in your sight

          are like yesterday when it is past,

          or like a watch in the night.

Hope Watches In the Night

We take turns

Feeding the light

Nurturing the flame

For each other

Cold

Bereft

Frightened

But

Not

Alone

We

Watch

And

Wait

Alone

Together

Hope

Happens

Time

Weathered

Like this

Visage

Worn

Away

Waiting

life energy

Becoming

Beauty

soul

Endurance

Still

Here

Here

In the temple

Court

Waiting

Watching

Hoping

Making

Wind

Blasting

Sandpaper

Grit

Turning

This face

Into art

Carving

Holy light

Made flesh

Before the one

Who comes

In the clear blue

fullness

of hope

sky returns

Although

The world

Turns on itself

Hope fills

inner horizons

Watch me fly

Romans 5: 3-5…suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (NRSV)

Undoing Disappointment

garment of

Pain

stretching tension

Between knotted lives

We knit

assiduously

Only

To be unraveled

Undone

Reassigned

become

Anew

Garment

Woven

Again

From divinity

At work in us

Endurance

At work in us

Hope

tugging us loose

Out of control

Losing

The stuff

We think we

Are made of

We fight

For every stitch

Slipping

Through us

Undoing disappointment

Cast off to the edge

Of

No

Thing

Then begins the labor

Of Spirit

the clothing

Of our souls

In love

Undone

Whole

Maker-

Made

Hope prepares the

Way

For

Love

Stillness of Hope

That feeling

Empty

Hollow

Old

Lonely…

Could it be

(O Glory)

Necessary

Precursor

(Steeping in fear)

To holding still

Spaciousness

Interior

(O loathing)

Fecund

Sloughing

Active inaction

(O mercy)

To prepare a way

A broken deserted

Way

But still

A way

To hope

More Unseen Hope

across

burgeoning

waves

suffering

tides

invisible

wind woven

bridges

parting greening

gray seas

address the waters

of creation

sea spume

where is hope

now

disembodied voices

murmuring

relentless

shrill

recalculating

to the distant

siren riddled

shore

you have to cast

on and off

for hope

on and off

cast far and wide

imagine casting

vast

impossibilities

grace tendrils

devolving

through your grasp

in the end

we are all

thrashing

air

dancing God’s

holy

line

reeled in

gloriously

or thrown back

to swim

and swim

drift

and dive

cast

and cast

wind woven

true

night steering

star clutching

flicker shreds

of hope

Romans 8:24 Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? (NRSV)

today

hope is the unseen

manna

ambrosia

you come upon

in the storm

wreckage

the hollows

you walk past

blindly

oblivion

beckoning

until

unseen hope

slips

between

your numbered

breaths

finest laser blades

carving out

despair

new sightings

behind gauze ribbons

patterns kaleidoscope

blooming

your

sweet

dark

shade

some

steadfast love

your clean

new

margins

your

holy

creatured

calm