viewingcamelot

John 4:13-14

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Matthew 12:15-21

Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. A large crowd followed him, and he healed all who were ill. He warned them not to tell others about him. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
“Here is my servant whom I have chosen,
the one I love, in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will proclaim justice to the nations.
He will not quarrel or cry out;
no one will hear his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out,
till he has brought justice through to victory.
In his name the nations will put their hope.”

Matthew 13:31,32

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

Luke 10:8-10

When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

I Corinthians 7:1-5

Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.

John 4:39

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

Luke 6:24-26

But woe to you who are rich,

for you have already received your comfort.

Woe to you who are well fed now,

for you will go hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now,

for you will mourn and weep.

Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,

for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

Camelot is fallen!
All those noble knights
In gallantry clad now stumbled
Under pride and sword and blight
Rode with shoulders broad
Into the darkest shroud
Gave up the cause, the commission,
Swallowed by a pleasing cloud.

Camelot is rubble.
The hope of the weak and weary
Lost to the wake of corruption
Search in unbelief, bleary
Along a fruitless, fallow earth
Wherein the valiant lay unmarked
But the revels of the self-deluded
Dance shameless and stark

Inside their ruins
Dressed in rusted, empty armor.

Perhaps because they are powerful
And wield it like birthright
Fearless and unashamed
Incapable of the sight
Empathy or remorse requires.

Perhaps because they struck first
Coldest, unrepentantly self-adoring
More convinced every day while
Deaf to lost imploring
That they are the heroes in their story.

The people they’ve mown over
Go quiet to the grave
Like a drowning man is silent
With his lips beneath the wave
But there is a testimony that will stand

Even if it’s too late to save-
Judgment will speak at dusk in finality
To those who refused to yield at day.

I love the quiet work
Where no one sees all you do
So it isn’t confused
With the whos or whys
The reward gestates inside
The activity of work.

No one assumes your pains
Are to amass gains
Because there are none to be had
Except installing good, dismantling bad
In silent defiance
Refusing compliance
With chaos and the downward tide;
True contentment abides

In hard work, gentle care, and deep order.

When masks are stripped, discarded,
We collide in authenticity.
Vision and kindness
Bond in organic simplicity.
Time interacts with matter
In our tiny hours
The cost of propulsion is aging
Birthing our vital powers
From the spent cocoon of flesh.
In growth we lose the growing pains.
The wrestling and ripping
Leaves us changed, never the same,
But more like ourselves
Than we’ve ever been.
For all these little miracles
I would suffer it all again.

Innocent love compounding
Is the purest, fiercest flame-
Indestructible- when it all passes away
This love remains.

So many jobs lined in queue,
But just outside my window frame
I hear my little children squeal
Delighted laughter at a game
They are creating for this moment
In the culmination of now and here.
Tomorrow the game is dissolved away
Today is the day to hold it dear,

And I am so thankful to hear,
To have these moments to draw near
While childhood is still composing.

All these years
Loving the flame
Waiting for the burn
Too fierce to name
To bloom the rose
Instead of curl the leaves
Into ash and bad goodbyes
The phoenix in me
Curved beak, bird of prey
Knows there is no mate
For the untamable soul
Whose burning fate

Is witnessed by all
Harnessed by few
Shared by none

But the flame is an inextinguishable gift.

How poorly we entertain the paradox!
Preferring to nestle in a simple canoe,
To follow the flow of a single tide
To keep our heads under the bow side
Looking at the handheld truth
Protecting us from all the shocks

Of panoramic vision.

Sometimes we strive
To keep upright
A foot each in very distinct
Canoes, we toggle how we think
Quickly between views, a fight
To stay balanced and astride

Each canoe in respective streams.

In reality, truth eddies wild
Like rivers rushing in all directions
Along with the banks, and all below,
A network too expansive to know
Variables too complex for simple reflection;
Yet she can only be known by a child

Who smiles, but does not measure.

Your blessing requires suffering,
Jacob gained Rachel,
And lost her, and Joseph too
Until his last years
Spent in a foreign land
Amongst foreign gods.

David gained a crown
After toiling for an enemy
He wanted to be a brother,
And then loved a son
Who wanted to be his enemy.
Blessed with sons
Who brought tragedy.

You blessed Saul
Changed his name
So he could face shackles,
Beatings, imprisonments,
Ridicule and distortion,
Martyrdom.

What is the substance
Of Your blessings?
Eternal?
Or changing existing matter
Into something this world
Rejects like an immune system
Rejects a foreign object?

The ones You bless
Don’t belong here,
But here belongs to them
In all their trials and crucifixions.