We die not for love of Wisdom,
nor for the cool comfort of dark closure
that creeps up and snatches
the aged from their cradles.
Yet, a dying choice proves sweeter
than the giddy ball of this age that spins
and twirls its way into madness--
a madness that finds no asylum.
We dress instead in beggar's rags
and are dragged from distant byways
into grace's feast. We die united
to the Feastgiver, to the Winemaker,
to the Vinedresser who reaps and tramples
once all the nations have ripened--
when all the laughter ends--
and begins anew.
Friday, November 8, 2013
New Wine
Trained as a music teacher in Philadelphia, I directed music and worship in several churches for over 20 years. My family and I settled in northern Indiana where until recently I worked in the truck building industry. My goal in writing is to cheer the heart, challenge the soul, and glorify Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Love Ablaze
Too often…
Love dies upon my lips
And never lasts
Beyond my fingertips.
A fire burns
Deep in a core of stone
But fails to warm
Or brighten those who dwell alone.
Love blazed long
In triune hearts divine
Before it spilled
Onto this soul of mine.
Their passion-plan,
What suffering it would cost:
God as a man
Would love me with a cross.
I repent
Of love devoid of form,
For by a curse
And selfless acts my soul was born.
New fire burns
Sending hot sparks abroad
To kindle flames
In darkened hearts to blaze for God.
Trained as a music teacher in Philadelphia, I directed music and worship in several churches for over 20 years. My family and I settled in northern Indiana where until recently I worked in the truck building industry. My goal in writing is to cheer the heart, challenge the soul, and glorify Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Name I Love
Name I Love
Jesus Christ--it's the name I love:
Precious Savior, Teacher and King...
Jesus Christ--lowly Lamb of God
Who will one day rule everything!
Jesus Christ, whom the prophets saw
In the types and shadows of old...
Jesus Christ, faithful Shepherd who
Sought this wand'ring sheep for His fold.
Jesus Christ's supernatural birth
Caused the choirs of angels to sing...
Jesus Christ's death upon the cross
Made His people's death lose its sting!
Jesus Christ--God in human flesh,
He alone true goodness achieved...
Jesus Christ gives that righteousness
To each guilty soul who believes!
Jesus Christ--loving Bridegroom who
Left His heav'nly home for His bride...
Jesus Christ braved the jaws of hell
So that I could dwell at His side!
MNA 10/25/13
Trained as a music teacher in Philadelphia, I directed music and worship in several churches for over 20 years. My family and I settled in northern Indiana where until recently I worked in the truck building industry. My goal in writing is to cheer the heart, challenge the soul, and glorify Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Hear and Tremble
To err and
to be human—not the same…
For I was
made to glorify the Lord
By loving
and by counting on His name,
Heeding His
voice and trembling at His word.
What—you suggest
a cosmos came to be
Without a
Maker? With no grand design?
That chaos
brought about complexity?
That nothing birthed a world so vast and
fine?
The One who
made me owns a ruler’s rights,
Yet took the
pains His wisdom to express
And even
stooped to earth from Heaven’s heights
To earn for
me a saving righteousness!
How can I
shame Him then, who loved me so—
Ignore one
single word that He has said?
Can I be
false—my faith not but a show
When only by
His words daily I’m fed?
Does my
obedience suit my own desire
With mere
convenience sovereign over all?
Or is true,
loving gratitude a fire
That drives
my soul to heed His voice’s call?
I fear
displeasure in the ones I love
And those
who hold my wages in their hand—
I tremble if
to judges I must prove
My innocence
of flouting some command…
And
conscience plagues if elders are distressed
At mischiefs
done with no intent to wound;
Should I not
fear to wound the One who best
Embodies all
respects on earth I’ve found?
My Lord—the loved,
and Lover of my soul
Who holds
rewards of grace which never fade…
The Judge
whose mercy swallowed justice whole
Because a
debt of wrath had to be paid…
Each word,
each syllable, each dot and stroke,
Each saying
from His lips I shall obey,
Though
scoffers sneer and learned jesters joke;
All will tremble at His word that final
Day.
Trained as a music teacher in Philadelphia, I directed music and worship in several churches for over 20 years. My family and I settled in northern Indiana where until recently I worked in the truck building industry. My goal in writing is to cheer the heart, challenge the soul, and glorify Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Weep No More
“Woman, why are you weeping?” Jesus asked Mary
Magdalene as she sat grieving and puzzling over her Master’s missing body.
The worst had happened. The ultimate tragedy of her
beloved Messiah’s crucifixion had been cruelly compounded by the removal of his
unanointed corpse from the tomb. Not only had the former prostitute been
separated from her Teacher by a murderous death, now she had also been denied
the comforting dignity of ministering to his remains using the spices and
ointments she and the other women had so lovingly prepared.
“I don’t know where they have laid him,” she told
this stranger through her tears, this intruder whom she assumed was the keeper
of the garden where the sepulcher was situated. Mary’s emotions were crushing
and debilitating. All she could think of was: “Where is he? Where is the One
who saved me from my evil past, who understood and forgave me, who looked
beyond my sullied life and loved me? I don’t care if he’s dead…I just want to
be with him one last time.”
“Mary,” the stranger said.
And with that comforting syllable all of the woman’s
grief and agony began to evaporate. Beyond her wildest fantasies, the voice she
heard breathed her dead hopes to life again. For there he was. There he stood.
Her Master was no longer dead. He was alive again, just as he’d promised.
“Why are you weeping?” If Jesus asked you or me that
question, how would we answer?
Death? Disease? Insecurity? Laboring in vain?
Unanswered prayers or desires? Violence or fears? Boredom or loneliness? Felt
absence of God—distance brought about by guilt?
Weeping prevails when hope is missing. Anticipation
of a brighter tomorrow is what holds off the flood of tears pent up within our
struggling souls. And the divine promise of the ultimate bright tomorrow is the
very capstone that hold the strong arch of the Christian faith together—that assures
us it will never collapse in ruins around us
“I will create a new heavens and a new earth,” God
promises in at least four major passages throughout the pages of sacred
Scripture. Two in the Old Testament and two in the New. The Old Testament
prophecy of Isaiah was written to Jews who were about to be overthrown by the
armies of Babylon and enter into a bleak and desperate time of captivity and
exile away from their beloved land. Much of the message God had assigned Isaiah
to proclaim was one of woe and doom and impending judgment on those who had
forsaken their God and His laws.
But in the midst of those oracles of woe were
seasoned in some refreshing promises of revival, restoration, re-patriation and
a brand new creation, foretelling not only the end of the Jews earthly exile in
Babylon, but the saving mission of the world-encompassing Savior: the
long-awaited Messiah, Jesus Christ.
In the coming of Messiah, the centuries-long hope of
all the patriarchs of the faith would find ultimate fruition—the ultimate
payment for our sins, the guarantee of eternal peace with our Creator, the new
hearts that would embrace Him and His laws with unending delight, the return to
the Paradise of God that our first parents lost because of their original
disobedience.
In chapter 65, Isaiah summarizes the future utopia
that God has planned for all who embrace His Son by faith and enter into His
new covenant. It is a world free of weeping.
It is a garden where tears are a thing of the past.
A place of unending joy where Jesus is never missing. Are you ready to enter
this haven of rest?
Trained as a music teacher in Philadelphia, I directed music and worship in several churches for over 20 years. My family and I settled in northern Indiana where until recently I worked in the truck building industry. My goal in writing is to cheer the heart, challenge the soul, and glorify Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
The Leap
This sinner
sat before his board of keys
And there he
tapped to form some simple lines
That
hopefully would make his reader smile
Or hold a
pleasant picture in his mind.
So, tapping,
tapping, out the stanzas stepped
Onto the
cyber-page all black and bold
As each idea
leapt from sinner’s brain—
From
darkened depths to soil a field of white.
Oh why would
such a wicked typist toil
To render
written recipes just right?
Perhaps to
purchase up some wrath’s release
Or earn a
flagon in Valhalla’s halls?
No, sinner
long ago had heard the truth:
The favor of
the Reader’s not for sale;
It rather
cost far more than we might pay
With wages
earned a million lifetimes more.
So, happy to
fulfill his given task,
So happy
that One perfect paid the price,
This sinner
tapped his midget masterpiece
And with it
leapt into the arms of God.
MNA 9.29.13
Trained as a music teacher in Philadelphia, I directed music and worship in several churches for over 20 years. My family and I settled in northern Indiana where until recently I worked in the truck building industry. My goal in writing is to cheer the heart, challenge the soul, and glorify Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.
Let All Things Now Living
(Original lyrics by Katherine K. Davis--1892-1980; New third stanza by Mark Aikins)
Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving
To God the creator triumphantly raise.
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
Who still guides us on to the end of our days.
God's banners are o'er us, His light goes before us,
A pillar of fire shining forth in the night.
Till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished
As forward we travel from light into light.
His law he enforces, the stars in their courses
And sun in its orbit obediently shine;
The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
The deeps of the ocean proclaim him divine.
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
With glad adoration a Song let us raise
Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:
"To God in the highest, Hosanna and praise!
Yet God’s greatest treasure, the Gift beyond measure,
He gave when our Savior was sent from above;
Through earth’s humble portal, divine and yet mortal,
Christ came to poor sinners with grace and with love.
Amazing salvation, a brand new creation
To all who believe Him He’ll freely bestow;
Now His resurrection points us to perfection—
With joy let us serve and His love ever show!
Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving
To God the creator triumphantly raise.
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
Who still guides us on to the end of our days.
God's banners are o'er us, His light goes before us,
A pillar of fire shining forth in the night.
Till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished
As forward we travel from light into light.
His law he enforces, the stars in their courses
And sun in its orbit obediently shine;
The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
The deeps of the ocean proclaim him divine.
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
With glad adoration a Song let us raise
Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:
"To God in the highest, Hosanna and praise!
Yet God’s greatest treasure, the Gift beyond measure,
He gave when our Savior was sent from above;
Through earth’s humble portal, divine and yet mortal,
Christ came to poor sinners with grace and with love.
Amazing salvation, a brand new creation
To all who believe Him He’ll freely bestow;
Now His resurrection points us to perfection—
With joy let us serve and His love ever show!
Trained as a music teacher in Philadelphia, I directed music and worship in several churches for over 20 years. My family and I settled in northern Indiana where until recently I worked in the truck building industry. My goal in writing is to cheer the heart, challenge the soul, and glorify Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.
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