Spiritual Warfare: The Pain

Upon waking up this morning, this poem came to me. I haven't written poetry in a while, but when inspiration strikes, I run with it. Do you have a poem waiting to be written, at the tip of your tongue?

                        The Pain

If he could be there on the wretched nights

When the Pain stabbed her, first in the flesh, then in the heart,

Intensely rending the very muscles from her bones.

If he could be there to guard and watch with her

To see the campfires of the Pain and his army coming, coming, in the distance

And then go out to fight them, bind them, and cast them out,

While she sought safety inside his tent, under the lamplight,

On her knees, praying, praying, until dawn,

Until the first splendorous rays of the sun broke over the horizon,

Casting every remaining shadow far away.

Then returning and pulling back the canvas door,

He would draw her out into the light and be her healer,

To mend the damage done in the night,

A hand here, a shoulder there, a foot, a knee, an ankle,

To fuse them back together again - the disjointed parts -

And restore her beauty and dignity with his affection.

Behold, a new creation!
If he could be there.

“Oppose, Lord, those who oppose me; war upon those who make war upon me. Take up the shield and buckler; rise up in my defense. Brandish lance and battle-ax against my pursuers. Say to my heart, ‘I am your salvation.'” Psalm 35: 1-3

Where Are You in the Manger Scene?

Infant King

Poor, needy, hungering,

Shivers, cries, sucks, clings

To the mother’s warm mantle.

“Love Me.”

A look

Tender, loving, pondering

Believes, hopes, comforts, cherishes

The babe at her breast

Before she lays him in the manger.

There’s a tension in my heart as I write these words. This poem is supposed to represent in some humble form what's in my heart this Christmas. I feel sometimes that I am the child, clinging to the mother’s mantle, hungering for comfort, while at the same time, I am the young believer, called to hope, called to believe the message of an angel, and to adore the God who comes to me as a little child, a baby.

This poem is about the longing between the Christ Child and His mother Mary and between the Christ Child and us. The miracle of Christmas is that the God of the universe comes to us as a baby, fully human and fully divine, hungering after our love and adoration. He says to us in His great love, “See my love poured out for you? Love me in return.”

Mary answers with a look of tenderness, while she ponders the absurdity of the Messiah coming like this! Sometimes we put God in a box and then when we can't see his presence in our lives, we complain, "Where is God?" But God can't be confined to a box. He likes to surprise us and to come to us in unexpected ways to show us just how much He cares.

As Mary answers his cries of hunger, she wonders at the fact that her Lord takes His nourishment and sustenance from her – He who is the Bread of Life for the world. And as she gently lays Him down in the manger, the feeding trough of animals, she resigns herself with total trust to the Will of the Father. In that simple act, she is giving Him to the world, a world that is hungering for a savior.

She is laying him down before the shepherds, who are all of us – afraid, surprised, hurrying, searching, finding, peering, gazing, beholding, praising, pondering, worshiping...

Now you can do it…write a poem that represents what you’re feeling this Christmas. Where are you in the manger scene? Where are you in this season of Christmas celebrations, waiting, shopping, gift-wrapping, baking and falling snow? I’m passing on the drill to you, so warm up your poetry muscles!

Instructions: write a poem about God or your relationship to God this Christmas, using the following format.

A noun

Three adjectives

Four verbs

A phrase

One or more words that relate with the first noun

The First Snowfall

There is something magical about the first snowfall of the season. Although it signals the start of a long, hard winter in Wisconsin, there is joy in the snowflakes and laughter in the skies!

Like a child, I wish to run outside and twirl around and to catch a snowflake on my outstretched hand!

Instead, I go out and take a drive to the nearby grocery store, dodging slushy puddles in the parking lot and keeping the windshield wipers in constant motion so I can see.

I buy some eggs for making dinner and then a bunch more. I am in the mood to stock up on food items while I am out in case the rest of the week is like this. I have this sudden desire to stock up on food and create a nesting place at home for the cold days ahead.

When I return, the rooftops are white, as though painted by some invisible hand. Only tiny, green shoots of grass poke out of the thin, white blanket on the ground. They stick their heads out for one last look at the earth, before they will have to settle under the snow and sleep until spring.

That is winter in Wisconsin for you. And I love it.

With every turn of the season, the Lord lets us write something new upon our lives. He gives us a fresh start to make of our lives something beautiful and enriching for others. “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens…A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away” (Eccl. 3:1, 6).

Casting away is always hard, but it brings with it the freedom of detachment and the coming of new surprises and adventures. As children gleefully exclaim about the falling snow, we can join them and the angels in singing hosannas as the earth is purified and baptized in white. “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow” (Is. 1:18).

From an unfinished draft of a poem I wrote:

The skies are shedding feathery snow,

Drawing closer the chambers above with those below,

Clothing the earth in bridal white and veiling you in lace of light.

Snowflakes, falling and landing on your uncovered head,

Blink under the street lamps – like pointed stars that

Twinkle in the night and then melt into the coming dawn –

So they glisten on your hair, suspended in Time for a precious, fleeting moment,

And I wonder aloud at nature’s touch of snowflakes on your hair.

I hope that we take delight in these magical moments of the turn of another season and stop to notice, and be amazed.