In Stillness Greet the Dawn

8/14/2019 In Stillness Greet the Dawn

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"In Stillness Greet the Dawn"

Poems for Morning Meditation


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Table of Contents 2

In Stillness Greet the Dawn 3

Sparrows 4

Alone? 5

Imprisomed 6

New Vision 7

The Seed 8

Does He Love Me Still? 9

I Thirsted 10

The Shack 11

Easter Thought - 1 12

Easter Thought - 2 13

Son Rise 14

The Cleansing Flood 15Doing The Math 16

Zion Horizon 17

Three Times 18

The Stone 19

The Price 20

Cycles 21

In His Presence 22

Skin 23

Who You Ultimately Are 24

Rumination or Illumination 25A Prayer 26A Prayer 27Deep In the Well of Disillusion 28How Marvelous the Voice of God 29Gods Promise 30

Dedication

In Stillness Greet the Dawn

Daily Meditations


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3

In Stillness Greet the Dawn

In stillness greet the dawn

Inspire air

Exhale despair

Release the gathering throngs

That just distract

And counteract

Your soul distilling longs

By pierced handsThat understand

This train of trials we're on

And what we face

At such a pace

For God's still on the throne

Inspire Life

Exhale strife

In stillness greet the dawn.


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Sparrows

Little friends who visit my window sill,

Shivering in the winter,

Chirping in the spring.

All life before you is set

And implanted within you are all the tools

You will require.

I, on the other hand, must look for meaning,

Must look for purpose,

Am restless, vigilant,

Constantly sifting ideas.

Your quick little movements fascinate me,

And give me pause:

We share the same Creator.

You, it seems, have learned to completely trust Him.


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Alone?

I thought myself alone

My voice a mere moan

Emitting from my cave

Of loneliness...

While thus enslaved

The mirage You staved

Saved, once again,

This claustrophobe.

For thousands and thousands and thousands of souls

Even this moment do You extol

My voice a mere morsel compared to the feast

That's offered up daily and laid at your feet.

Significant? No,

My rhythms and rhymes

Are doomed to succumb

To the pressures of Time

But just for this moment

With souls in delight

We all raise our voice

To light up the night.


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Imprisomed

The light imprisoned

In this prism

Begs to be released

To breach the daily grind

And with transcendent colors

Shine

Reversing pulseless pallor's

Grip upon this world

Ending bloodless screams

That all around us whirl

Providing pigment needed

For dreams to be unfurled.


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New Vision

Beyond the grasp of mortal mind

You work unseen and though I'm blind

And deaf and dumb to your true ways

There is a part of me that prays

To catch the smallest fleeting glance

Of your true power, then I'd dance

With joy at seeing my true source

No longer from this source divorced.

Alas, I must accept the fact

My mortal mind has cataracts

That keep my spirit's vision dim

And though I focus straight at Him

My mind picks up these strange distortions

Tinting all with mental torsions

So I'll pray new life begins

When I receive a brand new lens.


8/31

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The miracle of the universe

Packed within a little seed

And planted on Golgotha's hill

A gift to all humanity

Received God's wrath, besieged by pain,

Enveloped in a deep disdain

That poured from Heaven and from Earth

It died ignoble with a dearth

Of friends who faithful 'til the end

Found the seed a resting place

And mourning things that might have been

Resigned themselves to ebbing grace

But not for long for with the dawn

A tree stood on the fertile lawn

And branches reached into the sky

Connecting Earth to Heaven's eye

Who watched in favor as His Son

Provided shade for heart's so faint

And shelter for those wearied souls

Whose way had wandered from the banks

And desert dry now find their rest

'Neath spreading tree, by living well,

The hearts now beating in their breasts

Beat to a rhythm God indwells.

The Seed


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Does He love me still -

I, who wallowed in the swill

Swallowed Satan's pill

Followed every thrill,

I, ungrateful wedding guest

Who beat upon my breast

Demanding all the best,

Who searched through all the landFailed to understand

The gift of outstretched hands?

Alone...I did return

Atoned...my past was burned

A throne...throws Light where there was nil

Renewed

With death of doubt

I know He loves me still.

Does He Love Me Still?


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10

I Thirsted

I thirsted

There was wine

Hopes bursted

There was twine

World darkenedThere was light

Dawn harkened

There was sight.

In sadness

Find reliefIn gladness

At His feet

Grow stronger

Day by day

No longer

Castaway.


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11

There is a shack lurking in memory

Stiletto-stuck to corners of mind,

Where wounds, unhealed, defy hope to enterThe air befouled since love's light resigned.

The door now shut with windows boarded,

Darkness reigns in timeless tyranny,

Shame and guilt and anger lorded,

Hope and faith belittled, cleaved.Who can breach this stale estate

Where failures thrive untarnished, drear,

Where justice seems to deepen convictions

Our just deserts are unending tears?

One day a humble carpenter visits

With ancient tools of mystic design,

With painstaking effort slowly the Master

Upon Himself takes the putrefied grime.

The guilt, the shame, all on his shoulders,

The dark, the dank, the endless delay,

With Master skills He moves away bouldersThat blocked the Light of undefiled Day.

His work completed, devotion restored,

Tyranny ended, languor released,

The shack now serv a shining reminder

How Heaven can heal the most hopeless retreat.

The Shack


12/31

12

Easter Thought - 1

the very hands that held the scroll

washed the feet

broke the bread

BECAME the broken bread

the healing heart that spoke the words

raised the dead

changed the water

BECAME the poured out wine

the obedient spirit that

anguished in the garden

languished on the cross

relinquished up his entire fate and future

forever

into the hands of his Father

BECAME the mystery

the Way designed

for Truth maligned

to Life assign ... to you ... and me.


13/31

13

He is risen

He is not here

The cross is past

But now brought near

To all who bow

And call upon

The One who hung

And died thereon

He is risen

He is not here

He's lifted spirits

Dried the tears

Eased the burdensShown the way

Released the bonds

And freed the slaves.

He is risen

He is not here

So Hope's alive

Beyond the spheres

Of earth and sun

And home and hearth

Where Light dispels

The deepest dark.

He is risen

He is not here

And from beyond

Our veil of tears

We thrill to think ofWhen we'll hear

That He is risen

And He IS here.

Easter Thought - 2


14/31

14

The silent giants pass in the night,

Influence unseen, but gravity felt,

Invisibly pulled by these spiritual spheres

My soul seems suspended as offers are dealt.

A promise of plenty from yawning abyss

That Vader-like calls from the planet of Self,

A path for ascending my personal throne

To rule as I will with my pride left unknelt.

This path is a crowded, well traveled route,

Invitingly paved with promises long,

But while I am packing, preparing to leave,

My heart hears a distant, winsome song,

A song from the ages and pages of time,

A song of decidedly different plan,

It calls for the actual dying of Self

That's ruled ever since The Falling of Man.

It calls for rebirth, a New Creation,

New hope, it promises, now can be found,

It calls for reunion with the Father,

The breaking of Bread, a cross and a crown.

The planet of Self invading my dreams

Dissolves as an incubus, darkly devising,

Fading with early morn's offering of beams,

I throw open the window and see the Son Rising.

Son Rise


15/31

15

These old ears have heard an ancient voice

Stating the choice:

Forgive if you seek forgiveness

Release if you seek release

God, PLEASE...its not that simple

Life is complex now

Interactions need to be analyzed,

Compartmentalized, systematized

And sometimes sanitized

Don't you tune into Oprah and Dr. Phil?



But God, I was born with a bad temper

And then there's the bad upbringing

And what about the bad breaks?

The Cleansing Flood

Surely I'M not responsible for all of my mistakes!



Well...OK

I release anyone who has ever hurt me

Knowingly or unknowingly

I release all against whom I

have held a grudge

I forgive, I do.

Immediately I said this - it hit me

A crimson spatter at first

Then a flood

Ecstatic immersion

In a saving sanguinity.


16/31

16

"Life is the increasingly rarefied experience of the beautiful."

LIFE = BEAUTYDoing

TheMath

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all ye know and all ye need to know."

BEAUTY = TRUTH

I (Christ) am the way, the truth and the life."

_____TRUTH = CHRIST____

CHRIST = TRUTH = BEAUTY = LIFE


17/31

17

The highway leading to Zion

A mirage? A whimsy?

A flimsy deduction from a desperate mind?

A product of traveling too long in the desert

With withering winds that beggar and blind?Have you not known the burning sands

The insatiable longing for pastoral lands

The call of a castaway deprived of escape

The plight of plethoric plebe reprobates?

Ignited, the questing refuses to die,Intrinsically weaving its way to the eye,

Projected from there by retinal lamp

It colors the landscape and there encamps,

Awaiting an answer.

In morning dew, before the dawn,I tiptoe out on waiting lawn

Then lying down and resting deep

Entrenched and drenched from head to feet

My thirsty soul now finds relief

My vision clears and sees the street

That stretches on beyond this day

Through desert lands and disarray

To crocus blooms designed to cheer

My focus zooms and sees no fear

But only joy at Zion's end

And peace in knowingIn timeless flowing

It's just around the bend.

Zion Horizon


18/31

18

TTIMEIME

TTERRESTRIALERRESTRIAL

With ticks and tocks

And millions of clocks

Dividing our day

Like curds and whey

All nicely displayed

With minutes and hours

Wielding the power

To rush us to work

Or hurry to bed

We are wed

To Father Time.

TTIMEIME

CCELESTIALELESTIAL

Another matter

With momentous clatter

Of galactic collisions

And atomic divisions

With nuclear scatter

Taking millions of years

But looked on as brief

For stellar careers.

TTIMEIME

VVATICINALATICINAL

Spoken of old

And transcending itself

Where all things are new

And thus a wealth

Of wisdom's bestowed

On those laboring beneath

A terrestrial burden

And fleeing time's heat

As this ageless kingdom

Predating the stars

Sends Word to The Earth

And now bears the scars

A terrestrial reminder

Of celestial import

Though Time slips away

It still waits in this Court.

THREEHREEHREETIMESIMESIMES


19/31

19

I have been a stone

But He can make even stones sing,

Or use them to build a shelter,

Or hurl them to break down a wall.

The wail of my will has been stilled,

A tsunami tide from the fall of pride

Devastated my house of cards,

In shards I lay broken

But the mystery encoded

From the beginning of time

Refined what remained

And restored my soul.

The Stone


20/31

20

My sin stood there naked

AloneStripped of excuses

Devoid of veneers

Convicted and conflicted

In a sea of guilt

Unatoned.

Nailed at the pointWhere truth and justice cross

Left to die.

I unleashed the cry of the lost

Then listened...

Echoing from a timeless realm,

A Man in anguish, overwhelmed,

A willing victim of a verdict

Not his own.

My sentence was transmuted.

Set free from a sordid past

I stand aghast

And gratefully bow

To the One

For whom death was undone,

Who hung upon the tree

As the nails of my iniquity

Disappeared

Into my heavenly home.

The Price


21/31

21

Spring it has sprung as frost has been wrung

From mornings through which the crocus were peeping

Forests in bloom and meadows well groomed

Grant boon to the bees and birth to the sneezing.Life full of wriggling, growing, amassing,

Elongating days with short shadow casting

Temperatures rising and daylight providing

Fuel for frenetic intrinsic dividing

Of those cells comprising this burgeoning mass

A wildly unfettered frivolic morass.

But what next?

This laughing, cavorting and sensuous song

Continues as days grow increasingly long

But equinox passed and solstice attained

The raucous disorder just seems to wane

As order returns, the solar friend burns,

But not nearly as brightly and foreshadows fall,

Then death and decay insist on their say

And cold winter's grip puts an end to it all.

The waves of life, peaks and troughs,

Forever they're found washing over the earth,

Am I just some flotsam along for the ride

Tossed to and fro since the time of my birth?

But, Oh!, what a ride! It's been quite a journey

The heights, the depths, the moments so still,

The times the waves were waves of raptureSent by His hand, aligned with His will.

Cycles


22/31

22

I: Called and enthralled

Installed in His presence

I shook and shivered

Quivered.

My sins: Naked, aloneShould have been stoned

Who will atone?

I groaned.

Love: Such an outpouring

With blood, underscoring

The ancient prophet's

Predicted adoring.

The LAMB: Fresh from the slaughter

His blood on the altar

I rejoice with the Church

He bought Her.

Skin

In His Presence

I: Returning, discerning

My life full of yearning

Is now full of Spirit

Burning.


23/31

23

The interface of skin and air

Holds more than beauty secrets fair

Cells stand guard, arms interlocked,

As heat and rain and sleet are blocked

But underneath this bold facade

Behold! a living esplanade

With winding, weaving, narrow streets

That hustle life to head and feet

Daytona burns and winter blasts

Attempt to pierce and then slip past

The layered, locking ranks of cells

That work so hard to threats dispel.

From time to time a layer sloughs

When tour of duty's deemed enough

Then junior guards march front and center

Set to seamless service render.

Protecting Life still beating there

Ensuring progeny a share

And though they're battered where they stand

Its worth it for the little hands

Just learning how to reach and hold

In time, the guardians of the Gold.

Far across the reach of time

Protecting Man in every clime

And echoed in our family tree

In time, this sloughing's passed to me

For generations gone before

Have held the line and watched the door

Protecting Life still beating there

Ensuring progeny a share

And though they're battered where they stand

Its worth it for the little hands

Just learning how to reach and hold

In time, the guardians

of the Gold.

Skin


24/31

24

Who you ultimately are

Not a scar

Of a tortured childhood

Not a marred remainder of society's detritus

Not "just" a checkout girl, a delivery boy,

A nursing home resident...a streetwalker

You are the embodiment of a divine declaration

Robed in garlands of grace

Gifted by hands that are willing to pull you up

Offer you bread

Wash your feet

If I had eyes to see your true nature

I would bow before you...and your divinity

For He is in you.

Who You Ultimately Are


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25

Rumination

Or

Illumination.

The endless chewing on secular cud

Vernacular crud

Mendacious mud

Or

The endless viewing of transcendent light

Increasingly bright

As world takes flight

And with it...night.

Rumination or Illumination


26/31

26

God

May I be hidden in you

Splintered from view

Rendered anew.

Christ

Please take my hand

When I struggle in sand

With nowhere to land.

Spirit

Please set me afire

With crystal desire

As sights are set higher.

A Prayer

Life

Let me come to enjoy

And with Son employ

The gifts of this voyage.


27/31

27

Heavenly Father,

I lay before you my checkered pastVast are the voids where I wor-

shipped self

Where I walked alone,

But bones are weary and spirit sore

The Door...is it still open

Is there room for one more?

Is it too late to walk

The Galilean shore?

A Prayer


28/31

28

Deep in the well of disillusion

I sit and suffer in silent surrounds

Nursing the pain of palpebral contusion

A black eye reminder of things above ground.

Life knocked me down, I didn't get up,

I withered and slithered and sunk in this hole,

And now I find that I'm feeling quite stuck

Not relishing living the life of a mole.

How could this happen, things were just fine,

The job, the spouse and even the pet,

So what if I skipped over matters divine,

Those things never mattered, at least, not yet.

I fight with this subterranean thinking

In low lumen vision, with no human friend

To lend me their light of comprehending

To lift me to heights and sorrow suspend.

Perchance it's really the perfect arrangement

And all that's required, the single task,

The simple solution to end this estrangement

"If you would receive, there's a way...just ask!"

Deep in the Well of Disillusion


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How marvelous the voice of God

As delicate as unfurling pea pods

As loud as a thundering herd

And as sweet as a child that is sleep-

ing...undisturbed.

How marvelous the heraldic hands

That formed all the beaches, all the sands,

Tickling our fancy and funding the feast

Fermenting to wine, our souls, with His yeast.

How marvelous the chance to obtain

An audience, then join the refrain

With Him who holds no disdain

But bends low to hear those who whisper in pain.

How Marvelous the Voice of God


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In Stillness Greet the Dawn

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