Through the chanting canticle, so sang the priest,
Musically, reverberating through the church.
I felt the hovering dove through the organ’s feast —
A blessing he alighted into my heart’s alert.

For the twelve, perhaps it was for them like Canna,
Where Christ transmogrified the water into wine.
The Spirit swooped, with wings adrift, like gift of manna,
The dove, where Jesus’ righteousness was recognized.

When Christ knelt down in river’s rippling way,
Unsure, John immersed his Lord from Galilee.
So in the Upper Room, they felt the dove rename
His cooing warbles, transforming mysteries to heed.

Gruesome was the blood, from wound our Savior splayed
Allowing us the dove’s assurance with His faith.

Sunday, February 18, 2024
1 Corinthians 10:16

I actually thought that poetry and Christianity were oxymoronic because the tendencies of my youthful excesses ran so counter to the world I found myself then leaning into. There were two discoveries.

The first was that wild exuberance was a Christian virtue. There is nothing measured or stoic about the psalms. There is no hiding the corruption unearthed in the books of history. The Pentateuch has voices that sing out praise and ridicule foolishness. The prophets descry the weakness and vulnerability of norm. Christ is a diamond whose dim memory exalts our trials. And the epistles weave truth into a three-dimensional fabric.

The second was that as I got to know more about the history of poetry, that very little poetry was written that was not Christian before the 18th Century.

The cobwebs were sufficiently brushed away that I found myself hostage to a call. This had nothing to do with the computer support and programming or the 16 years of teaching English and Math. It had nothing to do with raising sons and running a family. It was an inside job. I later learned to call it the Holy Spirit. It has seemed like worship - even when the musings have only the most ironic ties to spirituality.

My purpose is this. Just as going to seminary and studying Hebrew and Greek has excited me to delve into preaching, so it seems that having over 800 pages of verse causes me to reflect that there might be others out there whose heart-desire is out of this world.