Jack Pelham

What is it—
This new manna—
This joy that comes
Fresh with the morning
Except on the very darkest of days—
Which I cannot explain—
And gives me a nudge
To start all over again—
Even when I had run out
The night before
And had little hope
But for the morning?

Isn’t it the most remarkable thing
That one person might invite another
To come over and help
Rearrange the furniture in his heart—

It would be a sin
He says
To judge the churches
For their dysfunction.

It is not his place
He says
But God’s
To declare such opinions.

Whatever else one may make of it all
There is that ever-troubling fact
That she does not in fact deserve
The treatment she gets.

And then there’s the worse fact still
Which is that she will probably tend
To believe that she does.

There are
To be heard
The voices of
The Shepherd
Of the other Sheep
And of the ancient Wolf.
And even so there are many
To whom it never occurs
That some distinction
Ought to be made
Between them.

I just saw a preacher quote on Facebook:

“Salvation is not a reward for the righteous; it is a gift for the guilty.”

Adrian Rogers

My response was this: “Is there no reward, then, for the righteous?”

He was glad his friend had stepped out to observe with him.

“It’s always so interesting,” he mused, “to listen whenever the humans talk about death, because by their very nature, they can hardly know anything about what they’re talking about. And even so, it seems they frequently forget the mystery of it all and count it commonplace, as if there did not lie beyond their veiled view this amazing next place that is the very answer to that churning question of a world in which they now live and move and have their being.”

I would learn in time
That it was your policy
To handle me with Tatemae.

It is generally our human privilege
To create new babies
Passing along our heritage on the Earth
And making a name for ourselves—
For a time at least.

And I suppose we don’t think enough
About either the import of that
Or the honor of it.

But I’m adamant that
We don’t think enough
About the heritage of thought
That we pass along to this world
Putting it out daily wherever we go—
And even in the homes where we keep
The precious children we have made.