Accountable

O Man,awake!
On Earth, you are held accountable,
Are you not?

You sing for your supper.
You dance to life’s tune.
Only the air is free.
All else is taxed.
The first fruit is owed another.

You fear to run from the law.
You are held to a measure.!
If it be such for a man of earth,
Mortal, yet accountable,
Where will a soul, immortal,
Flee upon a coming demise?

Without the stuff of Earth,
Naked and stripped of pomp and circumstance,
Revealed as soul and spirit,
Answering not to man,
But to God,
Are we not all the more accountable?

Copyright 2015 Joann Nelander

Resting, Silent

virginofvladimir1

Virgin of Vladimir by the hand of JOANN NELANDER

n silence I wait, silent.
Thanksgiving and praise have created the dome about me,
As angels carry their worshipful sound
And sing my song before the Throne of God.
I am implicitly carried with their melody,
Hidden in the words playing before my God.

The Gates open to admit my presence.
I enter, bowing low,
And I am lifted on high.
Kissing the cheek of my Savior,
I wrap my arms about His Neck,
As He on earth,
Loving embraced His virginal Mother
With an all holy and forever Love.

I rest in Your Sabbath Rest,
Gathering strength for the storm,
That Your Triumph may rain down blessing,
To make all days Your Day.

Here in silence, You whisper.
And, yet, is it not, the glorious and triumphal Shout?
Reign, my Savior and King, in your little ones
Longing for You and the Eternal Rest.

Copyright 2015 Joann Nelander

I Thirst

You showed the way
To live each day,
One cup of water at a time.

You satisfy Man’s thirst,
By thirsting first.
We come,
One cup of water at a time.

I live anew to give
As I have received,
One cup of water at a time.

Living water ,
Abundant stream,
Channel Your Life through me,
One cup of water at a time.

©2012 Joann Nelander

Seed of Hope

The seed is alive,
With the Future.
The seed
Buried seeking light.

The one Adam,
The store of generations,
Begetting,
But not solely of himself.

One alike in nature,
But unique to the task,
Played by his side,
The delight of Paradise.

Sin entered in.
Nature, sublime,
Met the devil in his slime.
Havoc and hell followed,
On a Fall
For the all,
Yet to be.

Generation,
Degeneration,
Retribution.
No restitution,
No remedy for institution.

Generations
Living under a curse,
Dying in time.
Eden lost,
Without return.

Until the One,
The sent
The holy.
Began His reign,
Faith born.
To invite again,
To turn again
From the mire!
Unto hope.

Confronting the curse
Hanging from the cross,
Accursed,
Becoming Sin,
Sin meeting its end
In Him.

Meeting His end
Defeating the end
To be the beginning,
First born of the Dead.

To be for us
To be forever New,
New life
New hope.

Finding Adam in his grave
Dry bones moved by the Spirit.
Rise with him.

A new beginning
Rising from death
To call all to life.

The life of Adam,
Born through the ages,
Played out in generations.
Out of one, many.

He, Christ,
Descending
Gathering ,
Mending,
All ascending ,
Captive to the Light.

The seed
Become
His Life,
The future without end,
Living life without end.

© 2016 Joann Nelander

Endeavor

I love the way
You keep trying
To take the beautiful,
And make it more beautiful.

Is there no city on a hill,
No mountain grandeur,
Nor sweeping vista,
That can truly satisfy,
In its worldly reality?
Having travelled all byways,
Having scaled the heights,
Plumbed the depths
As far as you dare,
Seek still you will.
You want yet more.
You always will.

Memory does not suffice,
Camera and canvas fail.
Pixels and pigments,
Even when teased to their ends,
Falter and fall short
Of the image
Engraved on your heart.

It is as though,
At some level,
You intuit.
You fear.
You suspect.
No, you truly know.

There will always be,
One more quest,
Another dream,
Perfecting,
The not yet perfect.

You glimpse the Creator in creating.
With moon and stars,
With waterfall and rainbow,
With the wilderness and the wild,
You point.

For the sum of all,
Sunrises and sunsets,
Venues and vistas,
Still will not equal,
Just simply point.

You rise to the challenge,
Build to the crescendo,
And then must wait,
Wait till the Perfect comes.

At last,
At long, long last,
To know
The One to whom creation points
To know at last
The One True,
All Beautiful,
God.

© 2016 Joann Nelander

Child of the Cross

Mother Mary,
Witness of the Passion,
Suffering witness,
Living the Passion,
As your Jesus
Hung on the Cross.

Pray, Mary.
Pray, My Mother,
Pray for me,
Who am so scattered,
Distracted and disengaged.

Pray every moment
Of my life here on earth,
That I be prepared for suffering,
That I be prepared for eternity.
That I find my Life
In the dying of Your Son,
My Lord.

Hold my hand, O Mother,
Every moment of everyday.
Pray for my yesterdays,
My today, and tomorrows.
Guide my feet to follow
In His steps.

As forbidden fruit
Appeals in its many disguises,
And occasions of evil spring-up,
Pull me out of harm’s way.
Steer me true, O Mother,

As my heart yearns for eternity
Let my glory be
As that of Jesus,
The Cross, the Crucifixion,
And the Dying.

May I live now,
Dying to Sin.
Witnessing at your side,
As Jesus beholds you.
He pronounces me your child.

I am a child
Of the Cross of Christ,
Which came to be
To ransom men.
I behold you, Mother Mary,
And you meet your Son in me.

© 2013 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved