An Anxious World

An anxious world seeks moments of happiness
instead of a life of joy.

An anxious world desires an understandable calm
instead of a peace that surpasses understanding.

An anxious world can’t wait for the next big thing
instead of patiently enduring the situation at hand

An anxious world wants to destroy those who disagree
instead of being kind to the ungrateful and wicked. (Luke 6:35)

An anxious world anticipates integrity to be corrupted
instead of goodness as our unblemished standard.

An anxious world searches everywhere for answers
instead of being true to the ones taught by the Master.

An anxious world believes might makes right
instead of a gentleness that brings righteousness.

An anxious world is chained in excess
instead of being free in disciplines
of prayer, charity and worship.

O anxious world!
Abandon what the world is selling.
Embrace what the Lord has given -
The Holy Spirit.

Prodigal

And after it rains
There's a rainbow
And all of the colors are black
It's not that the colors aren't there
It's just imagination they lack
Everything's the same
Back in my little town
**Paul Simon

Luke 4:16-30

Oh Jesus!
You can have a baptism.
like no other.
Deal with devil
on your terms.
Heal the
troubled, bleeding and hurting.

But back home
You’re…
The carpenter’s kid.
The undiscipled Rabbi.
None of the other kids
are like You.

You became like the prodigal.
Left your town behind
and
began to reveal who God is.

Then came home
to
a people who
wanted to have a feast and celebrate.
Bring us the Lamb and kill it.
For His own good.
(and ours as well)

Hell

By Billy Collins
I have a feeling that it is much worse
than shopping for a mattress at a mall,
of greater duration without question,
and there is no random pitch forking here,
no licking flames to fear,
only this cavernous store with its maze of bedding.

Yet wandering past the jovial kings,
the more sensible queens,
and the cheerless singles
no scarlet sheet will ever cover,

I am thinking of a passage from the Inferno
which I could fully bring to mind
and recite in English or even Italian

if the salesman who has been following us—
a crumpled pack of Newports
visible in the pocket of his short sleeve shirt—
would stop insisting for a moment
that we test this one, then this softer one,

which we do by lying down side by side,
arms rigid, figures on a tomb,
powerless to imagine what it would be like
to sleep or love this way
under the punishing rows of fluorescent lights,
which Dante might have included
had he been able to lie on his back between us here today.