Here is a poem which came out of a misty morning, meditations on Christian love, and the Agape (ahgahpay) meal that early Christians used to share while sitting in the places of the dead. Then, as poems will, it became itself despite what I might have wanted it to be.
Becoming Agape
Becoming Agape
While standing agape
As the world whirls with a will
From worry to worry and war to war
Is hard, because I am hard.
It is the best of all loves, and the worst,
Existing here as fullness that breaks itself into being
In a feast shared over the dead by the dying,
A meal of peace given piecemeal
When mood suits or occasion demands.
To be made that love which bears all things
Means being borne as a corpse through the streets of self-will
By Him who bore His own death, and mine, and yours,
In every part of His cross-crushed, cross-conquering body,
Binding us in His boundless freedom
To break upon the world as He was broken,
Like the morning mist of mercy on the wilderness of the heart
Which, pruned and tended, is soon turned into Paradise.
Share this post