Love and praise hold hands.
Happy hearts rejoice.
Song rises from the multitude,
As lives lived in faith believing.
The Just sing with their being,
Resplendent and resounding love.
Praise embodied in saintly flesh.
New song, New Day,
New creation,
In harmony with Heaven
A symphony of faithful, forgiven witness.
Alleluia.
Copyright 2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
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
Here I am at Your Table.
I am all need.
I am all pleading.
I am all receptivity.
Here I Am before Hope.
I am sorrow.
I am grief.
I am empty.
Here I am before Your Throne.
You are Love.
You are Joy.
You are mine.
I can come to You in Spirit.
I can sit by Your side.
“Ask Me”, You say.
“Ask of Me”, You invite.
“Come closer, when you are ready.
When you make up your mind.
I see, you are counting the cost.
That is wise, the thing to do.”
“When you measure Me on your scales,
Remember, too, what I paid for you.
I would do it all, again…. just for you.
Measure that, too.”
” ‘Not fair!’, you say.
“Let’s see,” say I.
“Is it Me, Who is unfair,
Or is it you?”
“You weigh friends, that will have go,
If you have any hope of staying true.
Then, you, consider, forbidden loves,
Which, by the way, I call ‘lusts’,
Lust that leaves you bust,
Left with only dust.
“You are right to consider,
For while, My Love is free,
It is relentless in it’s quest.
It will change and challenge you.”
“False loves and lovers,
Fade in My Light.
Tinsel tells tawdry,
In the company of Gold.”
I can come to You in Spirit.
I can sit by Your side.
“Ask Me”, You say.
“Ask of Me”, You invite.”
I see You are the Treasure,
‘The Pearl of great price.’
No longer can I sit beside You.
Please, may I enter into Your Heart?
© 2011 Joann Nelander
No Empty Dream
Lamenting, I quit my case.
Sorrowing, my complaints lie with me
In dust and ashes.
The plaintiff has become defendant.
I rest the case I brought against You.
What have I proven?
That I never knew You?
That I never sought You?
Counterfeits sufficed to fill my belly.
There was always another dream on the horizon.
Tomorrows pretended to satisfy my emptiness.
The chase was the gambit that became the game.
Before You showed me mercy,
You showed me Me
Not the Me of mirrors, but the Me of my heart,
That shrunken pigmy of diminishing proportion.
Among Men, there is no forgiveness like Yours.
If judged by Men, I would be meted punishment
By the self-righteously righteous,
While the unrighteous, would applaud my vice and welcome me at the hearth,
No forgiveness necessary, where sin is no sin.
As gift, the clarity of Day, dawned suddenly,
You appeared with Light as Your garment,
In Your Light I was all Darkness,
Pretense dissipated as Your Sun rose.
The world appeared not as a prize but as a wonder.
Nature didn’t dictate; it served.
The heart of mothers where turned back to their children.
And You reigned as King.
I would have fainted away,
Had not the Good Thief stood by Your side.
He smiled my way,
Eyes twinkling at the memory of his meeting You upon Your Cross.
Assurances asked, assurances given.
Simple eternal words.
Coming full circle, I rest upon Your arm,
You lift up my head and incline to comfort me.
Mercy smiles on my repentant heart,
And plans for me a future full of hope.
You Who laid the foundation of the Earth,
Plot a course for me through the Wilderness of the world.
My pilgrimage from sin to saint
Leads through Two Hearts bound by a Mystery uniting Heaven and Earth.
Birthed anew in Baptism,
Restored again in Reconciliation,
Your grace acts on me, Your grace acts in me.
All grace that waited upon my willing.
My will is now that of a child.
I follow at Your side, learning Your ways.
Your Words are my food and my fullness.
Heaven is no longer an empty dream, but a Promise.
From Your lips on the Cross, piercing my heart.
“Father forgive them.
They know not what they do.”
By ©2011 Joann Nelander
May I live with Mary in my heart this day.
May her thoughts,
And precious memories of You, dear Jesus,
Resound in my mind and fill my soul,
That even Angels in flight,
And the Triumphant in Heaven,
Stop to listen and love with me.
Amen
Be Holy! 