(from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead) Just whence is that “thence” He shall come from? And – while I’m asking – how often, if ever, Sunday mornings apart, does anyone nowadays ask about “thence” around anything? Quaint words, to express quaint ideas? All this heavenly to-ing and fro-ing between this world and the next? And then there’s that far-away spot, the remote place where he “sitteth,” that holy right hand of the Father – no less – which right hand should surely be present and active right here and right now. Not reserved in some distant preserve until heaven knows when. Spare us, handy Lord, our fumbling attempts to grope our way on toward mystery. And grant us the redeeming wisdom and grace to smile, every once in a while, at our folly in face of your glory. … [Read more...]

Take my fervor, take my will. Make me silent, yielded, still; wounded, if these wounds may be windows to eternity. Take my talent. What’s it worth? Nothing, save Your humble birth lights the chamber of my heart, truth and meaning to impart. Take my ego. Take my pride. Let docility abide in the soul of who I am, kneeling by my brother Lamb. Take my intellect and find faith and trust and peace of mind, making me content to see mercy as a mystery. Take my dwelling. Take my land, offered to an Unseen Hand that will give them back to me, anchored in eternity. Take my future. Take my past. Both lie in the shadow cast by a rugged cross of wood raised on Friday, known as Good. Take my living. Take my death. Let the Spirit breathe Its breath into this dark lung of me, lit by Your nativity. DANIEL POTTS is a ruling elder at First Presbyterian Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  He started writing poetry after his father began creating visual art in the … [Read more...]

Who would give birth to the god of death? Not brought forth in light, as if from clouds, but squeezed tightly into the dark center of pain where over-worked organs once sought their toil in silence, now doubly, to turn out the precious stone that will spread her feet and churn her body into paste? Who would rise at dawn to feed the mortal one? To fill with gold the body meant to fill the tombs, that will not rest now, not for an hour, already anxious for the long graveyard nights when his mother's warm breast, warm beating heart, will be the Father's cold stone, cold chest. Who would leave the coffee, the sunny chair to worship the mother of beauty, patron saint of sleepless nights and bloody nipples; to dress the babe in white and give him milk only to drown him for breakfast? Who would wipe the ashes from the child's forehead? Who would hang flowers from the altar? While good men in wood-paneled rooms wring their hands about the dance who would light a … [Read more...]