Monthly Archives: August 2012

Courts of Praise

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This poem was written to express celebration at Easter.  Everyday ordinary day is so full of God’s choice blessings, that praise should flow from every corner of the earth. In the deepest darkness, may hope arise through praise of God.

I invite you to linger a while and add a stanza.

Courts of Praise

Thank you, my Lord, for my life long,
For beloved family and friends,
And all dear hearts touching mine.

My treasure trove of souls
Spills far beyond my time
To number as my own
Those who have gone before,
Your saints of ages past,
The cloud of witnesses on high
And pure angelic beings
In realms veiled from the eye.

There never was a day
In which I was alone,
Nor forgotten
Before Your throne.

There, at Your feet,
All heaven sweet anthems raise,
To set celestial hearts ablaze.
My heart, in chorus,
Swells, dilating in love,
Grown great in gratitude.

Beside Your All Love,
I make small return.
You count my debt as paid,
And bid me enter courts of praise.

©2011 Joann Nelander

The Front Fell Off – Funny like Abbot & Costello

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Come Forth

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Call to me, loudly command,
When you call me forth
From the grave of my sin,
I rejoice.

When, on the Last Day,
You call me forth from the tomb,
From my burial rest,
I shall jubilantly rejoice.

With the saints,
And angels to cheer me,
Invite and speak my name,
Command, “Come forth!”
Death shall cower and fall away,
And the perfume of sanctity
Attend me.

My cloud of witnesses
Testify to Your many mercies
Showered and shown me.

Then shall my heart sing
And the feet of my testimony dance
To the music of Your Kingdom
And the song of Mary,
Who sang lullabies in my rest
Upon Your breast.

©2012 Joann Nelander

Jesus, Haven of My Soul

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Jesus, I place myself
In the holy confines
Of Your Sacred Heart.
Heart of my heart,
Draw heaven to me.

Surround me with friends
Of Your choosing,
That my mind might be full
Of the conversation of saints.

The world is so much with me.
It is temptress and shallow.
I long for the deep
Of Your thoughts,
To speak peace and refuge
In my wilderness.

You are the haven of my soul,
The Paradise once lost,
But now given
With my Daily Bread

Exile holds no fear
For You surround me.
You are my consolation
And marrow of my bones,
Strength of my strength.

Your Holy Spirit comes to me
And turns my tears to laughter.
In a valley of vanity and pride,
Your Humanity and Humility
Take me by the hand and heart
To lead me home.

©2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved

Considering Human Life

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  • From a comment considering human life
  • Yong Lee
  • Shanghai, China
  • We must not forget that life is a continuum and a mystery. Dissecting it into small fragments destroys both. One thing is for certain, destroying a fetus guarantees one less baby, one less toddler, one less child, one less adolescent, and one less adult man or woman in the world. With that, all of the potentials as well as detriments of the loss are gone. But it is not up to us to determine the value of a life by the outcome. We can only take it as it comes- that is the wonder of life.In all of nature, life cannot be chopped into pieces. Either we embrace it whole, or we lose it all. Disrupt the migration of salmons (a trip) and we destroy the species. The virtue, and perhaps the trouble of our existence, is that whole does indeed need every piece.

    By arguing and devaluing a passage in life common to us all, specially the most frail of our stages, we miss the point entirely. Argue endless about whose body it is, whose body it is not, whose right to choose it is, what a fetus is, and we forget that each of us belong to a web people without whom we cannot exist.

Who is the Poorest of the Poor?

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Who is the poorest of the Poor?
Is it not the one deprived of womb?
Is it not the one gone unnamed?
Given a frame
But denied rightful claim,
Stripped bear of place,
No space to grow,
Deprived of a proper birth?
Is it not the one evicted,
Before drawing it’s first breath,
Whose beating heart is silenced,
With the sanction of the Court!?
With privacy,
Lest the whole world hear it’s cry?

Though a mother forget her child,
The Father of all fathers
Will not, no never, forget.
He has a place,
And a name,
For all the poor,
For the poorest
Of the poor,
Called “Beloved”
And “Poor No More”.

©2012 Joann Nelander

All rights reserved