Pen and Lens

At the thin verge of meaning,
I wander in fields and woods,
near and far, known and not;
a kind of faith, hope, love
for truth, beauty, goodness.
Though the word escapes me,
and the image, my camera,
I wonder long, pen and lens.

A Child Is Born For Us This Night

All our vulnerability embodied
in so compact a time and space,
a child is born for us this night —
for the twisted tongue and limb,
and the harrowed heart and soul,
for the nameless none have marked,
and the countless come to pass —
born to sinew faith, hope, love
from dark to light, death to life,
this passion laid to earth, for us.

Words That Will Not Sleep

With the wrinkling years
it happens less and less,
words that will not sleep,
that clamor in the head
to be written, to be said,
though the dark is deaf
and morning long to come;
still, the heart does voice.

More Than a Sentimental Narrative about a Baby

The event we celebrate at Christmas is more than a sentimental narrative about a baby. It is the reorientation of human history through God's will not to power but to sacrificial love through presence in and identification with our vulnerability and suffering. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14.) God's glory, grace, and truth are embodied in the Child in a stable in Bethlehem, then on a cross outside of Jerusalem. And this is the real good news we carol at Christmas and throughout the year when we live his glory, grace, and truth in our world of vulnerability and suffering.

Hermeneutic Principle

The meaning of this
word modifies that,
whether proximate
or separate, in
time or space or both;
modifies, neither
rules nor replaces.
So hearts as for words.

They Are Gone

They are gone, and
I think of them,
long, as prie-dieu
bent to hard wood.

In the Sound of Sheer Silence

In a motel room and awake before dawn, having showered and shaved, I sat in a chair in the dark for some while. The rush of the a/c unit’s fan pushed air noisily about the small room. The abrupt disturbance of a door opening and closing across the hall shook even the door to my room. Outside a fire engine blazed by with din of siren and lights. Then racket of fan and door and fire engine went quiet. Utterly. In the sound of sheer silence, God, intimately present: questioning, challenging, assuring.

Images of Grasses

When I was at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge (Dorchester County, Maryland's eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay) earlier in the summer, I was entranced by the grasses, and by the grasses and water. Such varieties of grasses: textures; heights; colors; densities. I took several photographs. I could spend a long time observing the many grasses in their varied contexts of time and place, of light and air, of weathers and seasons. I wonder if I could produce a set of quality photographs. I would like to try. It would take extended time and effort. Yet the possibility stimulates and pulls me.

And related to this, I think some artist ought to compose "A Symphony of Grasses," or at least an extended tone poem, to evoke the textures, heights, colors, densities. I would only need to learn more about music and grasses. Ah, but for another life.

Present Circumstances, Present Self

How in the ambiguity of my present circumstances, not some imagined or desired ideal circumstances, can I glorify God? How in the ambiguity of my present self, not some imagined or desired ideal self, can I embody and manifest the truth, beauty, and goodness of God's kingdom? These questions have long wrestled me.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

At the end of the twelfth day,
it wells up. How many more?
How many more Christmases
to wonder and carol, to wander?

To ponder keenly in this regard,
we think peculiar to late years.
Yet truly it shadows one and all,
whether many or few remain,

Christmases, that is, since his cry,
for shepherds far at night in fields,
for mother pierced to the morrow,
for young and old alike, for me.