Category Archives: Poetry, Prose & Prayer

Poetry, Prose & Prayer

With St. Ambrose By My Side

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St Ambrose converting Theodosius

St Ambrose converting Theodosius /Wikipedia

St. Ambrose
Walk with me
This entire year,
As a friend and mentor.

In your lifetime,
You had marvelous friends,
All of whom, you led
Closer to God.
May they also pray for me,
So to honor you.
Monica, Augustine, Marcella, Satyrus,
Were made holier
By your counsel.
You walked with Wisdom
By your side,
And made great strides.

Counsel me,
For the glory of the God
That loves me.
I will thank you most properly in heaven;
Yet, my poor heart embraces you
As my particular friend in Christ, even now.
To God be the glory.
Amen

By Joann Nelander

Fishers of Men

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O, Lord, what’s it all about,
This “blogging?”
Feeds, links, posts and pings,
So much to learn,
Much more to do.

A world within a world,
A web of letters, syllables, and words,
And people pinging people,
For seeing, or not seeing,
Things just as they do.

Why me? Why the Blogosphere?
It won’t make me famous.
It surely won’t make me money.
It won’t even make me friends.

Maybe the Lord is saying:
“Jump in, My friend!”
“That’s were the fish are swimming.”
Fishers of men must use a bigger Net.

By Joann Nelander

With You In Mind

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Still unfolding in Time,
God built the Universe
With you in mind.
Matter abounds in precise measure,
Yet only mind cares
To count the treasure.

The Nature of Reality
Weighs only upon Man.
Mind, immaterial,
Counts on Science to understand.
But mensuration once obtained
Must be thought to think things through,
But since a thought can’t be weighed or measured.
How scientifically construed?

Mind, in this life,
On matter dependent,
Ideas, ethereal,
Yet vaulted resplendent.
Archiving the conceptual
Memories bound to a brain,
Quantifying the great
And trifles mundane.

Man alone of all Creation
Takes the world apart
To see why the tickings
And the tocks.
Challenges, stirred
By matter-less imagination,
End when no greater thought
Can be thought in our machinations.

Only then do we arrive
At the God we accuse,
Of being a non-being All-being
And betray and abuse.
Still He points to the stars
And Man more numerous,
Assuring His intention
Was never injurious.

Life from the stars?
Far-flung seeds of  Creation?
Enduring, maturing, while from the beginning,
The God in the dock willing our Salvation.

By Joann Nelander

Repenting and Forgiven

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c. 1632

Image via Wikipedia

How true it is,
That we are wretched sinners,
Dying since our birth,
Condemned by Man’s First Sin.

Yet, we wait, in hope believing,
For what we have begun to be,
Since our Christ died upon a Tree
Shedding His blood at Calvary.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,
One of the Holy Three,
All Man, All God, All Given
That for repenting
We become the Forgiven.

When the Twain Shall Meet

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There is a delicacy of old
With which men speak to one another.
Though, approaching from the farthest ends,
Never meeting in the middle,
Yet, do they honor one another,
In their humanity.

They offer the gift of presence,
Gifting to the other
An open ear
That wills to hear.

To do the Good
For the sake of Good,
To forge the best of thought
For presentation at the gate
Is the beginning of our holy end.

Though all men be wrong
In varying degrees,
There is something right
In putting down one’s arms
To meet as warring friends,
In hope and trust
That they serve a higher call,
When men do speak of peace.

Who is honored by this respect,
If not the Maker of all Men,
Who alone can change
Hearts of stone to flesh,
Making them like unto His own.

By Joann Nelander

Dancing With God

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Early one morning in the Holy Land,
I gazed heavenward and smiled;
An image painted in cloud,
Floated in the sky.

“I had the best dream,”
My companion, shared;
“It was so real.”
“I was dancing with Jesus.”

God delights to confirm the visions,
He gives His friends.
The heavens always proclaim God,
But, especially, on this day.

“That must have been you,
Who I saw in the clouds!”
I wondered in awe.
“Jesus was turning you
Under His arm.”

By Joann Nelander.

(Remembering Doris)