As He Loved Us

The hollow of utter despair

Is quite unlike its counterpart

Love sweetens even sorrow’s air

It stills the hunger of the heart

Love is not bound by law or creed

But unfetters where greed will bind

Love reaches; bent on tending need

Where the eyesight of Self is blind

The stuff of things is not enough

It bleeds Longing; Want cups the sky

It is impossible to love

And yet seek Self to satisfy

God sent His Son to teach us how

To love in truth; He gave Jesus

A Sacrifice and this is how

We ought to love as He loved us

© Janet Martin

Oh God, when You weigh me in that Grand Balance up above

I have but this one simple plea; that I have learned to love

They only asked us to remember the poor-- the very thing I also was eager to do. Gal.2:10

Oh God, make us eager to remember the poor!

Preparing for Christmas (today's re-post)

Poinsettia for the table

Bloom of festivity

Pretty little angel

To grace the Christmas tree

Lights and pretty candles

Lend their gentle glow

In tiny golden circles

Like choirs on the snow

Cookies, cakes and puddings

In volumes quite obscene

Large and tiny presents

Wrapped in red and green

Songs extol the season

Malls, the latest rave

Excuses become reason

As dollars become brave

Stress finds brand new victims

Cheer loses its mirth

All in preparation

To celebrate Christ’s birth

Shopping lists extended

Beyond budget’s creed

Holly, jolly merchants

Disguise greed as need

Christmas Eve descending

We brave the cold perhaps

To find within a chapel

A pew, where we collapse

My house sure looks amazing

The food, a work of art

Wouldn’t it be something

If this had been my heart?

© Janet Martin

Holy Undertaking of Hope's High Call

Holy, holy, holy

The Hand that tunes the air

And stokes the night with morning light

Stirs humble hearts to prayer

Holy, holy, holy

The love that leads our way

Is changeless in Time’s ever-change

And stirs our hearts to pray

Holy, holy, holy

The Voice that shakes earth’s slope

Whispers within our heart of hearts

Assurances of hope

Holy, holy, holy

Is time’s highway of air

Where breath-by-breath we approach death

And Life beyond earth’s care

Holy, holy, holy

Our mercy-cradled dust

Swells with the faithfulness of He

Who stirs our hearts to trust

Holy, holy, holy
The grace by which we trod
Does not give us what we deserve
But leads us Home...to God

© Janet Martin

 All within me, Praise His Holy Name!
…He will not always strive with us, Nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His loving-kindness toward those who fear Him.…Ps. 103:9-11

This is a portion of scripture that Jim Bauman (mentioned here last week) shared on Thanksgiving Day. He went Home to his Lord on Saturday night. We'll miss him and grieve with joy.

From Old Poets to Us...from Me to You

These worlds that interfere with touch

Where you and I are miles apart

Dissolve, where ink and paper clutch

Thought-syllables poured from the heart

Sometimes the vaulted far-from-you

Would be too hard and long to bear

Save for the pouring out of blue

…half poetry and half a prayer

To lie beneath this rush of time

And reach into its bittersweet

Would crush the warrior of rhyme

Where hold and letting go compete

…save for the wonderment of word

Heard hauntingly from age to age

Because a poet once was stirred

To spill his heart upon a page

My kitchen table and your chair

Are not so very far apart

For words can wing from here to there

And melt the air twixt heart to heart

© Janet Martin

Winter's Waiting-room

Oh, brook bereft of swoon

Oh, field bereft of sheaf

Oh, afternoon bereft of tune

By trees bereft of leaf

How still the barren hill

Of winter’s waiting-room

Within its sweep of umber deep

Sleeps summer’s soldered plume

Oh, gracious interlude

Of meadowland repose

Above the tomb of bud and bloom

A sea of silence flows

Oh, winter-ready ground

How cold and still you lie

The hour bereft of every sound

But Nature’s naked sigh

© Janet Martin

It was the silence that struck me when I was out today...clear, cold and still!