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Each year the house was solemnly blessed
with colored chalk on the door jamb and header, a bloodless script to set this dwelling apart. In the bleak midwinter a large candle of beeswax was left lighted on the front window sill as a beacon for others in the footsteps of the Posada. In this ordinariness were also folio pages of a paper Bible taped to the glass, not as elegant as a Gutenberg in a museum’s showcase that had its pages in both volumes turned every day, but bright with devotion as our prayers rose up and fell like angels on an extended work ladder. Daily prayers were repeated so quickly, one after another, that some would think it was arcane gibberish, but it was instead a shibboleth test of the true heart. Some of the wealthy and even libraries cut out the richly illuminated head letters from broken books, sold as individual pages to increase profits in sales. Outside in this orderly suburban neighborhood no one thinks they need to find a place of safety, and no effort is required to find their daily bread. But I am the one neighbor who lights a bright candle that flickers and then moves it toward the window while I draw back the curtains as a new day begins. -- Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who taught classes on the history of Christianity and on global religions for almost forty years. He lives now in a small village that is near a nature conservancy, a green cemetery and Amish farms.
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The fire at the end of the day
roars like the distant sea. The logs are almost ashes now that once were mighty trees. But with the wind and heat within, they glow as if alive, like Adam in the holy garden clothed with Breath and light. There was a bush that burned, I've heard, but never was consumed. There was a Man who, after death, shook off his empty tomb. He said that if I 'take and eat' him, I too will never die. Let me become a bush that burns with everlasting life. at the end of your uncle’s
graveside service, waiting in the van, a hundred yards from you and the white pop-up tent while I sat enclosed by sunbleached headstones benign as merlons of a fallen castle. There is a time for everything and for everyone the lamp will go out: for you, for me, for the glass bottle wheeze of our napping toddler, for Leroy M. Gallup, his fire snuffed out since 1918, for his elderly great-granddaughter out in the rain. I watched her grip his gravestone, crouch down to anchor a plastic pinwheel beside his epitaph. I saw everything through a beaded windshield, not darkly, not clearly, but magnified. Love, I don’t know a thing about Leroy M. Gallup; I barely knew uncle Mike, but what I knew then was alive: to marvel at you in the mid-June drizzle, left hand gripping a rose, program, and hem of your skirt as you tip-toed back through the wet grass, umbrella synced with your quickened step. You know I could have pulled further ahead, and I knew you’d tell me as much, eyes flickering, I hoped, from that furnace still blazing inside. -- Ryan Apple is a music professor at a small Christian college in Lansing, MI. His chapbook, Stars and Sparrows Alike, was published in November 2020 through Finishing Line Press. Ryan is also one of ten poets featured in the Poiema Poetry Series anthology In a Strange Land: Introducing Ten Kingdom Poets. I miss the maple
that stands at my childhood home, a summer shelter for our simple games a whisperer of good, green words sifting the sunlight for us through glistening leaves. And in the deepening chill it warmed our quiet indoor play casting rubescent shadows through the glass from branches bloodied by the wind-- a burning tree but not consumed. -- David Welch is a husband, a father of three small boys and a writer from Texas. Taking our cue from Eden,
Regarding the intended human vocation: An unbelieving world must be gathered up, Transporting them to God's location. Sovereignly graced for this, Though neglectful as Edenic priests, Meant to represent humanity to God, From those in authority, to the very least. Our essential task of regular intercession, Has, sadly, been widely misunderstood. Standing in the gap exceeds prayers. It means taking the bullet, if we could. The Apostle Paul is a worthy example, Willing to be cut off for his people. The elect must be praying for the same: Those not gathered, under the steeple. Actual atonement is outside our purview. Nevertheless, the Christ is our blueprint. Therefore, we bear His marks and die daily, Yes, even to the point we are spent. We were never put here to do nothing, Simply living prosperous lives for gain. No, to die is gain, but to live is Christ, Even though this often translates to pain. This is our service as Kingdom citizens, Functioning as both priest and sacrifice, Working and tilling as mutual gardeners, Assured that this shall suffice. -- Dr. William Kilgore is a sociology professor and theologian residing in Houston, Texas. After nearly 30 years as an academic, William began writing poetry in August, 2024, while at home recovering from a kidney transplant, at the age of 56. This opened up a door to a new way of contemplating things that was entirely new to him. In particular, and similar to journaling practices, writing poetry deepened William's faith, helping him to think through devotional, theological and emotional issues in his thoughts. We can see transcendence only
in terms of our three-dimensional world -- even angels -- who see in us what is invisible and visible, counting our drumming heart beats. Before this painted encounter we are quiet bystanders as this winged being -- a youth in feather-soft light and wings in motion -- shows power suddenly drawing near our bedlam world. This angel reaches out to the maiden's accepting hand that brings assurance now and at the hour of our death while she breathes the holy air brought from the original garden.. Here is all grace and gravity, magnified in her response, the beloved among the lilies , consoling the startled angel, amazed at humans, by these iconic words: Let it be. This same scene enfolds us as if erasing all separateness to receive gold-leafed light into our lives as we in our searching extend our own hands. -- Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who taught classes on the history of Christianity and on global religions for almost forty years. He lives now in a small village that is near a nature conservancy, a green cemetery and Amish farms. Jonquils crack through
The icy surface and peep Above the Frost before Winter is through with us. Not content with soothing hibernation, They defy the power of winter To become the Vanguard of Spring. Reckless and foolhardy They challenge the pace Of time and risk Premature Death. Yes, there’s been talk of stirrings We cannot see Within another realm Maybe something is About to change. -- Stephen Grimes is a retired lawyer living in a rural community near Birmingham, Alabama. His poetry has appeared in Ekstasis and Voice & Virtue. Small way of doing things
One person at a time No big-shots or high-fiving crowds Just one person Like a woman at a well Or beggar on a lonely road Even sitting on a golden throne In blissful ignorance Still a beggar Each needing cool cup of forgiveness And crust of living bread One person at a time And then another Each wearing a story For someone to discover -- Michael Braswell is a retired teacher from East Tennessee State University who taught courses on ethics and justice. He has published books on justice issues and the spiritual journey as well as several short story collections. His fiction, poetry and prose have been published in a variety of publications including Literary Heist, Foreshadow Magazine, Red Dirt Forum, Feed the Holy, and Mobius. His books include When Jesus Came to the Cracker Barrel, Gracious Plenty and Interview with Joab. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His website: michaelcbraswell.com. He keeps a drawer of old keys like teeth in a jar: brass and bent,
each one nicked by the insistence of some lock. When the church roof leaked, he harvested gutters, carried ladders, coughed confession into the rafters. On Tuesday he opens his shop behind a grocery; the bell over the door rings like a thin steeple. A woman brings a trunk sealed by grief: “This belonged to my mother,” she says. “I can’t open it.” He polishes the lock with a rag, hums an old hymn under his breath, and listens to the hinge as if it might have a pulse. With one patient twist a thing inside the wood gives: papers, a ribbon, a photograph of a boy making mud pies in a yard that still smells like summer. She does not seem surprised; she is relieved as if a map appeared. Whole continents of memory, long folded, unfold along her lap. He hands her the key. “Take it.” He takes no fee. Payment is the way a body relaxes when some weight at last lightens. That night he prays over the drawer of keys, naming each by use: house, barn, ledger; and holds the smallest between thumb and nail, offering it like a coin: “Lord, I keep what you give me. Let these open what is closed.” In sleep a neighbor’s laugh slips through fences, a child knocks at a door that had been quiet. He wakes, the keys warm in his hand, and knows: to keep a key is sometimes the same as keeping a promise; to open is always prayer. -- David Anson Lee is a physician and writer whose work often explores the intersection of faith, memory and the healing arts. Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, he now lives in Texas, where he writes poetry and fiction grounded in gratitude, attention and the quiet movements of grace. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals. O Maker, who threads morning through our shutters,
teach me again the art of staying. They said the feast was finished: bread gone; wine thinned to story. But leaving is not the only sacrament. I will sit. I will run my thumb along the rim of what remains: an oily seam, the ghost of salt, a single stubborn crumb. Outside a crow takes up the sky like a psalm; the house exhales. Open the doors that want to close. Let hospitality be slow: hands held in the dark so the other hand remembers how to hold. If blessing counts in leaving, let mercy count in staying: the stubborn charity that keeps a place warm for someone who forgot to come. We are taught to give and then step away; here, at the table, I learn otherwise. The bread remembers who it is; the cup remembers its maker. Teach this kneeling heart to offer itself like the table: set with plain things, a lamp, a bowl, a place for the poor to come and learn to break. To open is to be opened; to offer is to accept the gift of being offered. So I stay, and in staying receive the impossible gift: to be grateful. -- David Anson Lee is a physician and writer whose work often explores the intersection of faith, memory and the healing arts. Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, he now lives in Texas, where he writes poetry and fiction grounded in gratitude, attention and the quiet movements of grace. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals. |