Golgotha

The Cross will be my place of beauty.

You relish its ragged, ruthless horror,

revel in its hideous cruelty.

You think to crush me with its awful weight.

No! I won’t allow it. I will break

your vicious power with my submission.

I choose to make this Cross my own

by shunning anger, outrage, bitterness,

and offering instead my free forgiveness.

Even you, I will forgive, and promise paradise

to all who glimpse the truth amidst the thorns,

who catch the strains of love among the cries.

I’ll wrap my mother and my friend within

a seamless woven robe of love and care.

I look, and I find beauty even here:

beauty in the hacked and splintering wood,

the dead set nails and spiteful thorns,

and my life’s blood poured out to feed the earth.

And you will see your bullying brutality

somehow flickering, faltering, failing.

I choose beauty. 

Mad, bad, or Son of God

Cf Mark 3:20-35

They entered a house,

but before they could even feed or rest

a jostling crowd began to form,

like storm clouds gathering from the west;

a hungry crowd, starved of truth,

eager, clamouring to be fed. 

His mother and brothers were told of this:

‘He’s out of his mind,’ they said. 

The teachers from the City came

to spy on the one who stood

in the midst of the gathering storm. 

They would burn him if they could. 

‘Wherever he goes, chaos follows –

swarming mobs, Sabbath laws denied –

when demons rave he speaks to them:

he’s demon-possessed,’ they cried. 

From the eye of the storm the Son of Woman

spoke. ‘If none speak truth to power,

then power corrupts and demons thrive. 

I cast corruption out. This is my hour. 

My mind’s my own, my will is God’s, and those

who cede their will to God I here acclaim

as mine, as my true sister, brother, mother,

belovèd, treasured, living in my name.