Showing posts with label This Thing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label This Thing. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

This Thing...part four





Where is this crooning ether-gilded Thing?
It mocks and keens our quiet coveting
A shadow or an echo cannot cloy
Or stuff the searching spirit with its joy
The sorrow-blooms of longing and despair
Have flung their broken petals to the air
And by the heath of laughter’s giddy youth
Time’s disrobed past exhales her somber truth
And still the heart wails with its wondering
Where is this crooning, ether-gilded Thing?

Where is The Thing that heals our innermost
Bereavement with a kind, quickening host
Of softer-sweet forget-ance; ere the bell
Of mourning tolls our long and last farewell
And ever-more its desperation stills
Beneath cold, folded hands and silent wills
Our vainest boast and paltry pittance then
The footfalls in a vale where mighty men
Repose as one with lowliest and weak
The Equalizer leaves nothing to seek

Pale shroud of skin veils thin the screaming heart
And where we fall and crawl, the minor part
Of our existence; hope’s immortal spring
Increases our cry, where is This Thing?
As every now and then vague glimpses of
Something not earthy stuns us; is it Love?
Confession pleads, vain farce; clanging edicts
Without This Thing which comforts and convicts
And still we strive in earnest pursuing
Where is this crooning, ether-gilded Thing?

To be loved once by Love, the great I AM
Fulfills our deepest need; lust’s wretched sham
Distracts, confusion paints a paper smile
Where disappointment lines its plaster guile
Yet we would be calloused, sadly remiss
To count our wants and shake a thankless fist
…the blood-stained God of Calvary implores
Alpha-Omega Love swings wide the doors
Of its inheritance; his Offering
Replies to our cries, Behold This Thing

…and though our shame and wretchedness is great
To call upon His name is not too late
Unless we turn our backs and stop our ears
Until that Great and Awful Day appears
…Another morning tunes our sigh and cry
On season-spangled highways to the sky
Across this sun-sod orb of suffering
We press toward the promise of This Thing
Perfected; not the cloy of ether-gild
But then, the hope of heaven’s joy fulfilled…


© Janet Martin


Friday, July 26, 2013

This Thing...Part Three




Shall we drown in pathetic ignorance
Where vast oceans of information swell?
For what will be man’s great deliverance
If we shun He who stands twixt heav’n and hell?
The rudiments of Knowledge are not based
On mortal entertainment of the mind
Within humanity His will has placed
Ability and its power to find
What He reveals; we are not gods but men
Created by the One who knows all things
If we renounce what He instills, what then?
Will blind lead on the blind in feigned teachings?
Knowledge does not transcend Invisible
Though generations pass This Thing abides
The truth of it Knowledge cannot annul
Base knowledge builds on what the eye ascribes
Only Belief unveils the Law we brave
Belief reveals accountability
Yet, Belief has no power to save
Until we realize our Utter Need
Thus, faith becomes that sacred stepping-stone
For what we see can never be enough
Our vile and guilty penance to atone
Or justify our sacraments of love
So, love provided once for all, a Lamb
His shed blood offers hope, though ages roll
Alpha, Omega, Love’s Supreme I Am
Cries ‘it is finished’; man cannot control
His destiny beyond this leap of Time
Only the blood of Jesus saves the soul
And if we turn away from Love Sublime
Then we reject This Thing that makes us whole
This Thing that breathed into darkness and space
The workings of His gifted universe
This Thing, compassion’s blood-stained thread of grace
Whereby we bless or ignorantly curse
For who would dare to take Love’s name in vain
If with our eyes we saw what His Words tell?
And who would ever turn his back again
If we were shown a glimpse of Heav'n or Hell?
And who would hate the Hands that bore the nails
To seal our recompense; Knowledge is mute
Without love’s faith; its clamoring exhales
Verbose confusion for mouths to dispute
For Love is our lone, Ultimate Hope;
The poverty that plagues the human heart
From new-born cry until that solemn slope
Where life and death are ever sheered apart
Cannot be satisfied with bread and wine
Or things we touch with hungry hands and eyes
A branch will die when severed from the Vine
This truth even Knowledge can recognize
Was not the Tree of Good and Evil named
After Knowledge; and when they both did eat
Their eyes were opened and they were ashamed
As Need became their quest for bread and meat
Yet Fulfillment and Need align within
Thus juxtaposed; ah, tender paradox
God did not leave us hopeless, dead in sin
But gave His Son to die upon the cross
To fulfill Need; and all that we must do
Is ‘Come’; for there are none He will cast out
But those who find Him are too far and few
Many approach but turn away in doubt
Choosing instead the things which eye can see
For Need deceives; unmitigated, stark
Yet, when we put on Immortality
There are but two terminals; Light and Dark
And then what good is knowledge without Love?
But, if we have known Love we have seen God
Some speak of love but deny God above
What good is seed if we refuse the sod?
This Thing confounds meek poets, scholars, scribes
Philosophers and cleric, rich and poor
This Thing we give to get and cannot buy
Or live without; or selfishly procure
What is This Thing for which the whole world cries
While evil wars against its Deity?
Knowledge and ignorance argues, denies
What faith believes, in Love’s humility
God signed its proof, but not of ink on scroll
He poured it, blood-red Passion suffering
From head and hands, from side and feet, His Whole
Wept love; atonement’s last sin-offering
The age of information fills Time’s glass
But it cannot fulfill God’s words of old
Love is the ageless Hope we cling to as
We see God’s ancient prophesies unfold
For what He said will surely come to be
Heaven and Hell could not His wrath withstand
If not for Love; the Love that sets us free
This Thing is more than we can understand…

© Janet Martin

 In the book, A Step of Faith by Richard Paul Evans( book #4 in The Walk series), one line got caught in my thought today...'What a culture we live in. We are swimming in an ocean of information and drowning in ignorance'

This is why I love every single one of Richard Paul Evans books....profound bits tucked into the storyline!



Monday, July 22, 2013

This Thing...Part Two




 Wow, said my son Matt, as he reverently touched the pages of a neighbor's family heirloom Bible, 'this never changes. These words are still exactly the same now as they were way back then, and way before 'back then'...Yes! and in this book it is written ' Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.' Matthew 24:35

When on those dreamy banks at last we stand
Betaken, not by grief or living’s care
But by the utter glory of a land
Where pinnacles of earth cannot compare
To Heaven; we begin to see at last
Our hope complete; for His love has not failed
Though mockers spit and jeered and stones were cast
In ignorance and hate; God’s love prevailed
For Love cannot be slain; it transcends flesh
While evil threatens to destroy and kill
It cannot take what God instills in us
Our gifted breath He cradles in His will
And when He wills this flesh-blood cup will fall
But death for some, will be our gladder gain
For then we leave this sin-cursed orb of gall
Beyond this thorn-and-thistle port of pain
To eons of thought’s greatest mystery
Alpha, Omega, First and Last, the Same
Where I AM IS: we strain but cannot see
Or grasp the vaguest glimpse of Love’s acclaim
But oh, its Urge within us bids us on
For all we cannot know One Thing is sure
His Word abides; we build our hope upon
Love’s Truth; for its foundation will endure
Hate has no Heaven-promise; only hell
Pray tell then, who can its evil afford?
Soon we will bid this fickle world farewell
And everyone will receive their reward
According to the things which we have done
Not for salvation’s price; but out of Love
By this we prove what words cannot atone
Of whom we serve; this world or God above
For action’s voice is irrefutable
It testifies where speech stutters and fails
Its proof is certain and immutable
And in the end its witness will prevail
The wise take heed and ponder the discourse
Of thought and where its evidence will lead
And who among us has not felt the Force
Of He who seeks to satisfy our Need?
Our Need is universal; it is Love
Man cannot live by bread alone; the soul
Is not sustained by this world’s treasure-trove
Only God’s love fulfills and makes us whole
Clay holds no fortune that can satisfy
It simply keens the hunger of the flesh
The treasures of this world with this world die
Oh, what will succor longings that enmesh
Within the aching vortex of desire
And what will be the purpose to life’s pain
As we grapple and grope through life’s quagmire
If we shun God? Then is our suffering vain,
For hope pleads not from beds of sloth and ease
But from the broken heart, the weak and poor
And while we question suffering’s agonies
We weep to God, for He will not ignore
The cries of those who place their trust in Him
Proclaiming power, not by what we see
But by the promises that yet remain
Until that full and final liberty
When hope that is not seen will be revealed
The glorious climax to salvation’s plan
As the veil where His glory is concealed
Will part and we behold the Son of Man
And then, like Stephen we will cry aloud
‘I see Jesus standing at God’s right hand’
And all the unbelieving and the proud
Will believe, bowing at the judgment stand
Where Love will be the Victor evermore
The wordless groans for which He intercedes,
The anguish and the tears as we implore
Will be banished as Love’s triumph succeeds
The frustrations we were subjected to
By Divine Love, so we would seek and find
Freedom from sin’s bondage thus brought into
His glory as we leave this world behind
The glass we peer through now is dark, but then
When face to face we see the unknown known
His Love will be our ultimate acclaim
As we worship before His holy throne
Where death and sorrow will be wiped away
No pain and crying ever enter there
Though questions fill our answers with dismay
God did not His own beloved Son spare
But offered Him, a living sacrifice
To pay a debt of hate with Love’s pure blood
And we will enter Heaven by Love’s price
Redeemed within Love’s unrelenting flood
For He has suffered and was tempted just as we
But Love will overcome the wiles of hate
This suffering that seems must surely be
Will never pass through Heaven’s gleaming gate

© Janet Martin

 Our speaker Gord Martin at this morning's worship service just returned from a visit to Burundi. His topic was Is There Purpose to our Pain? and he showed pictures, told stories of the pain and horror they were told of and witnessed leaving them shaken, as those suffering proclaimed the power and love of God...and he came to the conclusion that many times the only purpose of pain can be that through it we seek Hope, the Living Hope, Jesus Christ.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope  that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. Romans 8; 18-21





Saturday, July 13, 2013

This Thing (part 1)



From new-born cry until we die its need is captivating,
An underlying hunger, pure, profound and inundating
our sweet half-second triumphs as the climax of its praise
dissolves in time’s progression to a haunting, hurting haze.
Even Adam in the Garden and Eve close by his side
in spite of Love’s perfection were not fully satisfied,
lured by the wily serpent to that one forbidden fruit,
hungry for sublime wisdom that would make them wise as God.
Now lust, this Hunger’s enemy perplexes our best
intentions, as the need of It expands within our chest
and though we hold It dearly and we weep to let it go
because of Its outpouring into living’s leap of woe
as vespers strum the twilight limb etched keenly on the dusk
and we, within its gripping hymn our feeble hopes entrust
back to the One who IS the hunger we are hurting for
but somehow trade It for distractions that invade this stricken shore
as vainly then we fumble with elusive understanding
straining for the Intangible, immortal and transcending
what we cannot acquire without  suffering Its price
encapsulating every breath with Its cost; sacrifice.
For Love, Hungers great mystery cannot be bought or sold
yet costs us everything we have Its perfect wonder to behold.
Can we with feigned politeness Its devout expression boast?
Or divide our allegiance yet proclaim Its uttermost?
The measure of its pleasure is a selfless dividend.
We cannot keep This Very Thing on which our needs depend
yet, in its dispensation it returns ten-thousand fold
if we yield not to temptation Its eschewal to withhold
as Ananias and Sapphira who coveted man’s  praise
but were struck dead as Love revealed the evil of their ways;
For Love cannot impart in part; It is That Sacred Whole
untainted if we love the Lord with mind, body and soul,
so Grace descended, for He pitied our hopeless, helpless state
providing for Himself a Lamb to save us from sin’s  Fate
where, from the bliss of Eden, man was thrust to till the sod
and bear the curse of disobedience declared by Holy God.
Now, lust and love struggle and war within our frames of dust
and everything we hunger for returns to this One Must-
Love; the off-spring of Immaculate Conception,
Its fullness, yet unfathomed by our corrupted perception
but, as the heart surrenders in earnest faith and belief
He imbues with Love’s assurances His comfort for our grief
though unleashed demons scream and seek to nullify our hope,
His Love is greater than death’s schemes; and though we pant and grope
through bogs of fear and failure or through disappointment’s vale
Love promises forgiveness, for His mercy will not fail
but binds us to Himself; Love. Pray God, how can it be?
We are secured and held by Love; this frail mortality
can fly on wings as eagles, not for boast’s shallow reward
but, because His Love renews our strength if we hope in the Lord
Therefore, we press against the weight that flails within our core
for this is not the paradise we were created for
when Eden’s door was guarded and its Paradise was lost
mankind began Its journey seeking hunger’s uttermost
Its evidence is everywhere in nature’s diadem
The Keeper of birds of the air and every floral gem
instills in us awareness of a greater Presence where
Faith is the substance of its hope; its fellowship is prayer
And as the flower of the field blooms then returns to earth
So are the days of man; what is life’s meaning then or worth
if we forfeit eternity while searching for This Thing?
Yet, God so loved the world He died Its fullness thus to bring
To every woman, man and child who was, is, or will be
Love gave His life to pay the debt of sin and set us free
And even now this Hunger wails and groans for His decree
That we should love each other just as Love loves you and me
The tactics of the human heart are deceitful and vain
With lips we utter white-washed words while our thoughts disdain
the mouthed profession spilled to satisfy the ears of men
when we are stinking sepulchers of lust and greedy yen,
forgetting that Love knows the heart; where our passions lie
and we will meet Love face to face when our bodies die,
Then we will never hunger for this aching filament
of Love that transcends everything beneath sky’s ether tent
For there, the crux of every want, of every wish and whim
Will bow before the throne of God and we will worship Him
And every vile schismatic will weep for the utter loss
Of shunning He who bled redemption in red rivers from the cross
But now the day of Grace extends so we may find its peace
See how each season folds, end synchronizing with release
Until Its folded moments chart a day, weeks, months and years
And then, that final, faint half-breath when Time’s grace disappears
Where nothing but Time’s living proof will testify our love
As we come face to face with what our speech cannot disprove
For Love will seek to find our names written within a Book
of life; where he records the precious hour when we took
our brokenness before Him as we uttered ‘I believe’
and then according to His word we have come to receive
the inheritance promised as our sins were washed away
and Love at last is perfect in this Everlasting Day

© Janet Martin