Friday, March 29, 2024

What do we do about Death?

What do we do about Death?
by Adrian Plass

What do we do about death? 
We don’t -
The monster is hidden away.
It's not in the zoo for the public to view
The look on its face would empty the place.
We don’t want to die, the people would cry
Death is the curse in the back of the hearse
We don’t need to see it today.

What do we do about death?
We don’t -
We shovel it under the ground
Under the sod and hope there’s a God
Whose principles bend at the bitterest end
Or we burn it away, and whispering say
Death is the scream at the end of the dream
There isn’t a lonelier sound.

What do we do about death?
We don’t -
We don’t even give it a name
He’s gone before to a distant shore
She’s passed away, we gloomily say,
He’s fallen asleep in a terminal heap.
Death is the spear that is poisoned with fear
It pierces the heart of the game.

What do we do about death?
We don’t -
But once in the angry sun
A winner was slain at the center of pain
When a battle was fought at the final resort
But because of the cross it was fought without loss
And death is knife that will free us for life
Because of what Jesus has done.

Adrian Plass, in An Alien at St Wilfred's, 1992.


Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Eucatastrophe

“The Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story–and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, 1981)

A eucatastrophe is a sudden turn of events in a story which ensures that the protagonist 
does not meet some terrible, impending, and very plausible and probable doom.

Monday, March 25, 2024

ONLY ONE

Only one king comes to our town
not in a Rolls Royce or BMW with police bikes all around, 
but bareback on a runt of a donkey,
like a comedian, feet brushing the ground.

Only one high priest comes to our church
not led by bishops and cardinals
rich-robed with religious sentiment,
but led by a grubby gang of street kids
screaming their heads off with merriment.

Only one god comes down our street
not surrounded by holy angels
or shining like the sun at noon,
but with tears running down his cheeks
for those who play the devil’s tune.

Only one true-man comes along this way
never looking to be served
or honoured with public praise,
but to serve and give his life
as a ransom for rebels and strays.

© B D Prewer 2001

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Hosanna! blessed is he that Comes in the Name of the Lord!



The disciples went and did exactly what Jesus told them to do. They led the donkey and colt out, laid some of their clothes on them, and Jesus mounted. Nearly all the people in the crowd threw their garments down on the road, giving him a royal welcome. 
Others cut branches from the trees and threw them down as a welcome mat. Crowds went ahead and crowds followed, all of them calling out, “Hosanna to David’s son!” “Blessed is he who comes in God’s name!” “Hosanna in highest heaven!” Matthew 21:8-10(MSG)

Saturday, March 23, 2024

It is finished

It is finished.



Finished?


Is it?


I don't think so,


Not until the funny little woman on the Friday bus
Means more to me than I do to myself

Not until I read aright the message in your pain filled eyes

That I must take the ones you loved and left behind

To live with me as my responsibility

Not until I freely place my stock of cherished certainties

Like sad surrended weapons at your injured feet

Not until the public and the private faces 
Of my troubled Christianity

Can meet, and know they recognized each other when they met

Not until I know the names of more than half the people in my street


Finished?

No, I don't think so. 
Not yet.




By Adrian Plass

(Sourced from here)