I say to myself, I will not mention him,
I will speak in his name no more.
But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart,
imprisoned in my bones;
I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.
–Jeremiah 20:7-9

Then Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me. 
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
—Matthew 16:21-27

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But we believed in you, that you would save
the innocent and holy from the grave,
that you would heal the worthy, lift the poor,
and lead us on through heaven’s open door.
Instead you turn to face Jerusalem
and turn your sheep—where are you leading them?

A shepherd walking straight to the wolf’s jaws,
you let your lambs like gems adorn his claws.
Where is the sling to drive the wolf away?
Where are the rod and staff to shield his prey?
A cord to scourge the shepherd who has failed,
the crossbars where you let yourself be nailed.

I will not sing of you; I shut my mouth
‘til my bones burn like wildfire in a drouth
and I cannot endure my silence, Lord—
and yet your silence pierces like a sword.
With all the innocent you, too, are slain,
but why could mercy not have spared them pain?

I hold it in until I gasp for breath:
You did not come to save us from our death
but to transform it.  Though we try to flee,
the only world we have is Calvary.
The only earth spins on through gain and loss.
You came to share our pain and bear our cross.

Take up—but it already fills my hands—
and follow where the shepherd’s each step lands.
Accept the cross I fight against and find
a fountain for my burning heart and mind
wells up from barren wood and starts to pour.
Somehow the grave becomes the open door.

Glödbädd By Tobias Barkskog, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52965762

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I’m driving on a tire with a nail
between the treads and piercing through the belt.
It’s only just beginning now to fail,
the difference in its pressure barely felt.
The leak is slow and I can go for miles
before collapse’s catastrophic end,
and yet I’m low and sinking all the while,
the road a blind before me as it wends.
And still the journey’s nowhere near complete,
so I drive on, no word upon my lip,
no respite from the summer’s glare and heat
reflecting from the highway’s concrete strip.
How far there is to go, I could not say.
I grip the wheel, and in my heart I pray.

Still Life With Stone and Car, Sculpture by Jimmie Durham at Walsh Bay, Sydney, Photo By Whiteghost.ink – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48526040

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The grass has died and dried as tinder,
this heat a heavy weight as grief.
A spark could turn the world to cinder;
the stones cry out for some relief.

Long since, the garden flowers withered;
the hardened ground cracked to its depth.
All that was green has browned and blistered;
all that was hopeful bent and wept.

But tears and sap evaporated
or fled to refuge at the root.
How long they wait; how long we’ve waited
desiccated, destitute.

O Lord, come down and rend the heavens:
Let streams of storm-clouds be unfurled.
Defeat despair with startling weapons:
not wrath but mercy.  Flood the world.

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and
he asked his disciples,
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 
—Matthew 16:13-20

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The ever-here, though I would fly from you
as swift as shadow, brief as morning dew
on wings of eagles or the legs of hares
or comet’s flashing in the upper airs
or by the breaking of my mortal frame,
still you are with me, and you speak my name.

And yet remote, immovable you are,
as cold and constant as the compass star
that though I follow I will never touch;
divine and other, you are ever such.
I fly from you, but then toward me you yearn;
you freeze me out, but then for you I burn.

Between these poles, as far as north from south
you reach and fill, a gushing river’s mouth,
yet you remain as far as east from west
and leave the desert places bare, unblest.
You heal my wounds, but still I bleed and bleed;
I hunger for you even as I feed.

But there will come a moment at the end
when stars touch earth, when you will come to mend
all things, and then the desert lands will bloom
and light will fill my farthest reaches’ gloom.
Until then, near and ever, ever far
all that I know, O Lord, is that you are.

Polaris, its surrounding integrated flux nebula, and NGC188 By Kush.Chandaria – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=108074228

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My son is singing as he packs for college,
and I am silent, listening.  The days
I sang to him, boxed up in all this haulage,
will go with him on his unfolding ways,
forgotten, mostly, in his quest for knowledge,
but buried where the homing instinct stays.

My son is singing songs of old I taught him,
the way a fledgling sings to see the sky
as summer rounds the back stretch into autumn,
so much of joy and freedom in the cry,
so eager to cast off the nest that caught him
and test his wings.  O God, may he fly high!

My son is singing, music ringing brightly
from songs I shared with him or those he found
on his reconnaissance.  The notes fall lightly
as nestling down in air.  These rooms resound
until he packs the car, and I pray nightly
they follow him to his new nesting ground.

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I even now would shield you from all harms;
how could I not, who carried you so long,
the weight of you forever in my arms,
my lips still lilting lullabies of song?

I cannot hold you now or hold you back;
my songs no longer echo in your ears,
although they sound in mine: A constant track
accompanies a world of newfound fears.

Now you are going where I cannot trail
and shouldn’t try.  Be careful, O my sons.
You go where you will fall, where you will fail,
and I can’t pick you up as I did once.

But still my arms are wrapped around the shades,
the memories I lift, caressing you
where you are not.  Though all else fades,
I feel that weight of you at one or two

before you got too big for me to lift.
When you are gone, I sit and hold you yet.
Greater than gold, the mass of you, the gift.
My mind may slip; my arms will not forget.

Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth,
he whom I must love but for himself,
for whom I leave the north, east, west, and south
to seek him ever more within myself.

Let the world have all itself—it is enough
for me, this chapel floor to kneel upon.
Such is the ground of ecstasy, of love,
of nights of joy too soon dispelled by dawn.

For there the barren stones with orchards bloom,
and pomegranates from a wooden cross
pile up in all the corners of the room,
with flowers from a springtime beyond loss.

This watchman body sees him not, but I
can see; my soul finds him whom my heart loves.
Only a flash, a moment, a heart’s cry,
then he is gone who filled these pleasant groves.

So I will seek him still, my soul send forth
though here I kneel contented and confined.
I range a scope beyond mere south and north
to seek my love and know that I will find.

Christ Embracing St. Bernard by Francisco Ribalta – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=158223

Bless the cheaters; bless the scammers;
bless the frauds down on their luck.
Bless the thieves and all flim-flammers:
We’re just trying to make a buck.

Bless the con-men and the takers:
Give and gladly we’ll receive.
Bless the blusterers and fakers:
Grant us, maybe, a reprieve.

We are charlatans and shysters
taking you for all you’re worth,
wise as serpents.  Lord, be wiser
or we’ll take the whole damn earth.

We’ll get all that isn’t nailed down,
steal the shirt right off your back,
but we pray you’ll get us bailed out
when the devil’s on our track.

Oh, for there were thieves beside you
when you hung on Calvary;
one believed and one denied you.
We don’t know which ones we’ll be.

We are gamblers; we are bettors,
but we’d rather hedge our bets.
As you said, “Forgive your debtors,”
Lord, forgive us all our debts.

Though our hope’s in dice and card games,
though we daily rob you blind,
do not leave us to the darkness:
Oh, be merciful; be kind.

Let us feast at your great table
like a Vegas-strip buffet.
Lord, be generous—you’re able.
Bring us in and let us stay.  Amen.

But the woman came and did Jesus homage, saying, “Lord, help me.” 
He said in reply,
“It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.” 
She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters.” 
—Matthew 15:21-28

We come from east and come from west
as fast or slow as we are able,
for all who come to you are blest,
even the dogs beneath the table.

We come from west and come from east;
we come for healing, come for worship.
Your children sit down at the feast;
we gather begging at your doorstep.

We come from temples, come from gods;
we leave our father’s house and people.
You smash our idols with your rod
and we lie shattered at your feet here.

We come to you from other flocks;
we come because our names are spoken.
You find us fallen among the rocks
and bring us with you, bruised and broken.

We come, and leave all we come from;
we come as exiles, empty-handed,
and still you call and still we come
and know we will not be abandoned.

We come, O Lord, because you heal,
for you alone, O God, are able.
We come here crawling to your meal,
and you will seat us at your table.

Franz Marc: Dog Lying in the Snow, 1910-1911, Städel Museum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=477944

As man is born of woman
and then is laid in earth,
so Christ in Mary’s womb then
lay waiting for his birth.

The rhythm of her breathing,
the music of her pulse:
He heard the waters seething
and felt her pacing lulls.

The passage of her body
like falling from the stars,
it took from him her heartbeat
to lay him in her arms,

and yet from thence he left her.
Our God’s far-reaching Word,
of comfort so he reft her
that mercy might be heard.

But in the end she held him,
once more the ark of grace:
When death at last had felled him, 
she was his resting place,

and from her arms they took him
to lay him in the tomb.
The earth’s foundation shook, then, 
as promise shattered doom.

Now she who was his shelter,
who held him on her breast,
has entered in his temple:
The ark is laid to rest.

German or Netherlandish 15th Century, Pietà, c. 1450-1500, NGA 3155 – This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the National Gallery of Art. Please see the Gallery’s Open Access Policy., CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74853452

“O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste,”
so Cassian insisted we should pray:
The oft-chewed syllables have lost their taste,
a muted cry in morning’s washed-out gray
as, elbows on my knees, I hang my head
and seek the strength for getting out of bed.

O God, what can I tell you?  I just want—
What more, beyond this roof, these walls, the bed,
full fridge, hot water flowing like a font?
And yet the words come ringing in my head,
“I just want—” and they hang unspoken there,
unfinished as the soul they’re laying bare.

O God, O infinite as my desire,
I am an empty maw that longs to cram
all things inside.  “I just want—”  I’m a liar:
I want it all.  A want is what I am,
and you are give.  I just want, and I find
always another I-just-want behind.

O God, as everlasting as my need,
there was a time this hollow heart was filled:
You set a place and sat me down to feed,
and every I-just-want at last was stilled.
It seems so long ago.  I just want, now,
to get out of this bed.  Please tell me how.

O God, though I am only emptiness,
you still have made the sun to rise again,
and if the day is stale and flavorless,
still it is here.  So give me courage, then:
O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste,
and fill this hunger once more with your taste.  Amen.

Francisco de Zurbarán, Bodegón or Still Life with Pottery Jars (1636), Museo del Prado, Madrid, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15962763