Oh, my soul, rejoice and be joyful in your King
For He is good and has created everything
Oh, my soul, take flight and soar above the clouds
In the air that fills your wings, let go of any doubts
Rejoice in the one who made you and calls you his own
He has found favor with you and made his home
Oh, my soul, be still and quiet and free
It is in those places that you will find your God to be
Reach up to Heaven, ascend to Him on high
Be at peace with the glorious divine sigh
But he who sits on the throne is also very near
And, as I sit, one thing seems quite clear:
Rejoice, my soul, in every time and every place
Because everywhere you look is the Lord's face
He loved you so much he died to show
That his love is real and not just a show
He died so you could be set free
By his Hands and Feet, nailed sin to a tree
Rejoice, my soul, for your God is risen
To break you out of spiritual prison
Rejoice, my soul, for healing in pain
Life in death, and loss in gain
Sing with one clear voice
Oh, my soul, rejoice

Christ and disciples
gaze from the stone tympanum —
Frozen redeemer

In darkness, a church
of carved Baroque stone
catches me walking
unawares and alone.

Two stone hands reach out
from the church outer wall.
A gesture of blessing
or a prayer for us all

in stony carved silence
that echoes the voice
of a God we can’t hear,
who stays quiet — by choice?

Just when we need
to hear they’re right here,
they feel like a veiled cloud
that is more distant than near.

Still these outstretched hands
remind me of this:
Divine’s in the touch
of human hands’ godlike gift.

The bright death of a star
lights the black night from afar.

Astrologers walk from east to west
and follow the nova’s fiery arc.
The burst of white in heavens’ dark chest
gives sign of a birth, love’s new spark.

They walk on through sandy shards of this earth,
past broken glass of our days
to find the one whose heralded birth
gives hope that our world is reglazed.

Held in their hands are gifts replete
that tell what the child will become:
Gold for a king, sweet incense for a priest,
for a healer, myrrh that will scent his tomb.

And the lodestar that died
signals the birth of a child
whose death and rebirth
lit a new star on this earth.

Selah.

Each year I watch them travel in a snow globe
that hangs upon my Yuletide fir tree,
a glowing glass sphere where waters flow
’round these Magi walking magically free.

Standing as objects in the mirror – do you still objectify the lessons
of your past, reflected in the rear-view? Words are unnecessary now;
your scars have been reopened – haunting illusions.

Resurrected from the place where you once buried your dreams –
down to earth, yes, yet stripped bare by the relentless erosion of
existence. We rise to the thunderous stillness, questioning our very existence, yet finding no answers in man—responding to the chaos
around us, colliding like two wayward planets in this small world.
One day, we shall encounter familiar strangers, yet it will feel
peculiar to label any of them as friends.

In certain moments, I feel as though I am crossing myself out beneath
the weight of the cross, feeling an emptiness within— "survivor's
guilt"?

No… that guilt placed upon me has been paid already, not by my own
cost – yet for the cost of something more profound. And I willingly
surrender myself to a purpose that transcended death, then to endure
a life filled with trivialities, only to feel nothing until the very end.

                         That profound purpose is… my faith.

In the sallow sea of sable ink
that breaks upon my splintered prow,
fire beacon’s beam a-lightly winks
and casts gold light upon my brow.

I see a man walk on the swells
and wave to me through sheets of sleet,
his silver voice a tolling bell
that beckons me to take the leap.

His shining rope crests upon the waves
that rend my vessel in tempest flares:
Across black brine the lifeline sways —
My callused hand will take its dare

to grasp the line that more life gives
and feel its pull to once more live.

Two thousand years and miles away
a foretold child was to poverty born.
A tyrant willed to keep his sway
and murdered children in his scorn.

The child would live to preach a love
that surpasses the smallness of our minds;
The despot now dwells in a dim-lit grove
of shattered urns and skeletal time.

That child became a man of words
which fell upon unhearing ears —
They twist his love to sharpened swords.
To a tree he’d be nailed: hyssop tears.

Yet though he too had died alone
like the despot who’d hunted him,
his message of love has only grown
in spite of new despots grim.

A tale of two kings in memory:
One turned to dust, one love’s victory.

A blanket black across the sky:
The ice-ringed moon lights backs of sheep.
We see our breath and hear the sighs
of gathered cattle that we here keep.

There in the dark on pasture fields
while we watch over our huddling sheep,
a silver seraph, her wings revealed,
now rouses us from the darkness’ deeps.

She opens up her thousand wings,
reveals a blaze of gilded flame,
cold air around us begins to sing
in tempest that her fire proclaims.

Our hearts now race, our eyes are blind
from searing light and disbelief:
in cowering terror we take our flight
and quiver as a quaking leaf.

Out of the cauldron of light she made
comes forth a voice of gold lyre strings:
Dear shepherds, my friends, don’t be afraid
for I am herald of glad tidings.

And all around, piercing the dark,
come further blazes of wings and song,
each calling to us to rest and hark
to this gathering radiant throng.

Their whirlwind song swells to a peak,
of peace and glory in highest heights.
We long to see of which they speak:
the wonder of this night of nights.

Their chorus gleams and softly fades;
the embers of our hearts now glow.
We stand in awe of what they said
and feel our veins with warm hope flow.

We see a star rise in the west:
To the birthplace of a shepherd king
we walked in peaceful silence past
the watchful stars a-twinkling.

Along the path to newborn babe
are brambles, barren bushes’ thorns
that by the light the angels made
bring forth red roses with gold adorned.

Thus from the shards of broken worlds
comes sudden hope in wings unfurled.

What a beautiful way to start the day
To spend an hour with Jesus
To give him my joys and challenges
And see Him how he sees us
To see him is to know him
To know him is to love him
To love him and be loved by him
There is nothing better
In Heaven or on Earth
Bread from Heaven the original Wheaties(TM)
It truly is the breakfast of champions
It gives me the strength I require
It gives me the tools I need to succeed
And it gives me the grace to inspire