Small deaths

Jesus suffered the small deaths of life.

Losses of Joseph and John.

Rejected in His hometown.

Being misunderstood

by His followers and the crowds.

Grieving over Lazarus.

Angered by the condition

of His Father’s house.  

Denied by Peter.

Betrayed by Judas.

The bullshit trial.

Which lead to His Big Death

That blessed us 

(as we suffer 

our own small deaths)

never to experience

the curse of a

Big Death.

The Day After Sinatra Married Mia Farrow

So the coffee would stay hot all morning 
Edna, the large-boned Dutch waitress, 
her face and throat flushed from the heat 
would first fill my thermos with boiling water 
in the Circle Diner on Kutztown Road, 
this July morning steamy and loud 
with a highway crew at the counter, 
two grizzled mailmen in the side booth 
and us from the nearby construction site, 
a job I loved for its noise and fresh air, 
screwing big lag bolts into the sills 
of Caloric Stove's new factory warehouse, 
the whirr of the countersink drilling the wood, 
clean white hemlock or spruce

and when one of the mailmen heads for the door 
Edna calls out to him "Hey Jack 
how you think Frank's feeling this morning?" 
Smoke from the grill and the cook's cigar 
clouding the wide glass window: 
Frank, 20 years her senior, 
stepping from Sam Giancana's limo 
or else whispering One For My Baby 
into the spotlight: his death 
in his voice with its flawless control, 
his slanted fedora and raincoat, 
his glittering life we could only imagine

though most of us are laughing by now 
wolfing our hot cakes and eggs 
when the old man yells back, "Tired as hell!" 
pulling his hat down low at the door, 
happy enough to be going to work 
on a Friday under the dawnwashed sky 
of Johnson's Great Society, 
with the Lehigh Valley opening its thighs 
and the weekend gorged with promise.

Joseph Millar

The Gates of Love Budged an Inch

Mark 1:16-20

Just an ordinary day.

Casting for cash.

Mending our tools.

Minding our own business.

Then the Extraordinary enters,

and 

asks us

to join Him 

in finding His lost sheep.

And the fools

run off with Him,

while the rest of us

have to hold the fort

without them.

A Great Leaf

A great leaf, that God and you and I

have covered with writing

turns now, overhead, in strange hands.

We feel the sweep of it like a wind.

We see the brightness of a new page

where everything yet can happen.

Unmoved by us, the fates take its measure

and look at one another, saying nothing.

Rainer Maria Rilke

The Poor Rich Man

News Story /Mark 10:21-23 /Luke 18:22-24

The poor rich man

misheard the gospel.

He thought 

his fellow one percenter

went away mad

instead of sad.

"Oh, My God!"

Not only in church

and nightly by their bedsides

do young girls pray these days.

Wherever they go,

prayer is woven into their talk

like a bright thread of awe.

Even at the pedestrian mall

outbursts of praise

spring unbidden from their glossy lips.

 Billy Collins

“Merry…”

No one’s hangin’ stockin’s up,

No one’s bakin’ pie,

No one’s lookin’ up to see

A new star in the sky.

No one’s talkin’ brotherhood,

No one’s givin’ gifts,

And no one loves a Christmas tree

On March the twenty-fifth.

Shel Silverstein

"...but deliver us from evil."

(A meditation on each word(s) 

of the Lord's prayer)

Lord,

please deliver me from 

the pleasures of sins.

And when I fall,

grant me Your mercy

as I suffer its consequences.

Amen.

Canticle of Mary (The Magnificat)

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
   and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever,
world without end. Amen.

"...not into temptation"

(A meditation on each word(s)

 of the Lord's prayer)

Even though I profess

You are the one true God,

the world contains 

so many of

its own gods.

Trying to seduce me

that their fantasies 

are able to

fulfill my 

needs and wants.

Lord,

may every choice

I make today,

be considered

between

Your Way

and the 

world's temptations.

A Christmas Circular Letter

The city had withdrawn into itself 
And left at last the country to the country; 
When between whirls of snow not come to lie 
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove 
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city, 
Yet did in country fashion in that there 
He sat and waited till he drew us out 
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was. 
He proved to be the city come again 
To look for something it had left behind 
And could not do without and keep its Christmas. 
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees; 
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place 
Where houses all are churches and have spires. 
I hadn't thought of them as Christmas Trees. 
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment 
To sell them off their feet to go in cars 
And leave the slope behind the house all bare, 
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon. 
I'd hate to have them know it if I was. 
Yet more I'd hate to hold my trees except 
As others hold theirs or refuse for them, 
Beyond the time of profitable growth, 
The trial by market everything must come to. 
I dallied so much with the thought of selling. 
Then whether from mistaken courtesy 
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether 
From hope of hearing good of what was mine, 
I said, "There aren't enough to be worth while." 

"I could soon tell how many they would cut, You let me look them over." 

                                    "You could look. 
But don't expect I'm going to let you have them." 
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close 
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few 
Quite solitary and having equal boughs 
All round and round. The latter he nodded "Yes" to, 
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one, 
With a buyer's moderation, "That would do." 
I thought so too, but wasn't there to say so. 
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over, 
And came down on the north.
                                     He said, "A thousand." 
"A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?" 

He felt some need of softening that to me:
 "A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars." 

Then I was certain I had never meant 
To let him have them. 
Never show surprise! 
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside 
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents 
(For that was all they figured out apiece), 
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends 
I should be writing to within the hour 
Would pay in cities for good trees like those, 
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools 
Could hang enough on to pick off enough. 
A thousand Christmas trees I didn't know I had! 
Worth three cents more to give away than sell, 
As may be shown by a simple calculation. 
Too bad I couldn't lay one in a letter. 
I can't help wishing I could send you one, 
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas. 

Robert Frost

"And lead us..."

(A meditation on each word(s)

 of the Lord's prayer)

Luke 15:3-7

It is true

that the angels

cheer and rejoice

over the one

that the Shepherd

has returned to the fold.

However,

they are mystified

at the Master's

difficulty to

lead the 99

from the 

pastures of the past

to

fresh new meadows.