September 15, 2013
Vol. 16, Issue 3
Vol. 16, Issue 3
It’s all about…The
Lamb
Maude Carolan
Pych/Quarterly Poetry Letter
“Worthy is the Lamb
that was slain to receive power and riches
and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing.” Rev 5:12 NASB
It’s all about…The Lamb is a quarterly
publication for lovers of the Holy Lamb of God, who also enjoy poetry. The
purpose is to magnify our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and inspire an
ever-deepening relationship with Him, the lover of our souls…
THESE ARE THE DAYS OF
AWE—
The
ten days between the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hoshanna) and the Day of Atonement
(Yom Kippur) are known as the Days of Awe (Noraim Yomim) on the Hebrew
calendar. These are days of great reverence, a time to get right with God and
man, a time to forgive and to ask for forgiveness. It can also a time to think
about eternity and where you’ll be spending it. You don’t have to be Jewish to
do this.
THE COLORADO PLATEAU—
It’s
been a great summer. Bob and I spent fifteen exciting days exploring the
Colorado Plateau with Bob’s son Jeff, Jeff’s wife Yolanda and their daughters
Isabel, nine, and Sophia, seven. The six of us piled into their Honda Odyssey
and visited the National Parks and canyons of Utah, including Arches,
Canyonlands, Bryce and Zion. It was awesome. God’s majesty was ever before our
eyes. I spent time today writing a poem about it which I’ll be certain to share
here at a future date.
FEATURED POET: SANDRA
DUGUID—
I’d
like to introduce you to a poet new to this publication. Her name is Sandra
Duguid. Sandra and I see each other at poetry venues in northern New Jersey
from time to time.
Our
featured poet was born and raised in rural western New York and received a B.A.
from Houghton College, an M.A. in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins
University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Buffalo. Sandra has
taught literature, composition and creative writing at colleges in New York,
New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and was Assistant Director of the Academic Support
Center at Caldwell College in New Jersey, where she managed the Writing Center
for seven years. She retired three years ago to devote more time to writing.
Sandra
was awarded a Fellowship in Poetry from the New Jersey State Council on the
Arts and was invited to read her poetry at a Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry
Festival. One of her poems received an honorable mention in the Allen Ginsberg
Poetry Contest, sponsored by Passaic County Community College, and her poem
“Road to Emmaus” (which is one of the poems featured here) received a prize in
a contest sponsored by Calvin College. The poet lives in New Jersey with her
husband, Henry Gerstman.
Sandra
recently published a book of her poetry entitled “Pails Scrubbed Silver,”
printed by North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc. It is available through
Amazon.com. I’ve selected two poems from the book to include here, and invited
her to tell us what inspired her to write them. This is what she said, in her
own words:
ABOUT
“ROAD TO EMMAUS”
The New Testament account of Jesus
walking unrecognized by two disciples on the road to Emmaus following his
Resurrection is always compelling. Paintings and songs depict it anew. (Our
church choir sang a recently written anthem based on it.) This poem was a response to a challenge to
write a poem based on the Biblical account, and it was actually written quite
quickly (unlike many others!) The New Testament words were beside me when I was
working on the second stanza in particular.
The poem was written some time
before 2003, and I was responding in it to several events that had happened in
1999: the shooting of the innocent Amadou Diallo in his doorway by New York
City police officers; the terrible school shooting at Columbine High in
Colorado; and the succumbing of my older sister to breast cancer. Three
“crosses” had been marked on her “chest” where radiation was to be applied.
These events were all “the worst
news in the neighborhood” in my/our time. We need comfort, companionship, and
good counsel, just as did the pilgrims walking with the unrecognized Christ in
their unthinkable time. His words,
quoted in the poem, gave them a sense of reference not only to the past, but to
a future, as His words offer to the contemporary pilgrims, me/”us,” in times of
our suffering.
We, too, might respond then, when
Christ is recognized, as they did, with hope, hospitality, wonder, and
self-examination.
ABOUT
“MEMORIALS”
In the poem “Memorials,” I put
myself in the place of the woman in Matthew 26: 6-13 and Mark 14: 3-9, who
anointed Jesus at the home of Simon the leper. She did not know the full extent
of her act nor, of course, that Jesus would soon be put to death. She was generous and loving in her response
to a man she possibly had seen work miracles and whose distinctiveness and love
she partially understood. When Jesus said her anointing was anticipating his
burial, she was perplexed, believing, I imagined, that he would die someday, as
we all do, even though we are grand in some sense (“towers” of bone) of
“natural causes.”
I think the ironies in this account,
that the disciples were not magnanimous, as she was in her poverty; nor as
understanding as she was, and that Jesus could tell what was about to happen to
him, while others could not, or did not want to think about it—and that we all
shall live, rather than die, attracted me to this New Testament down to earth
and mysterious encounter. Jesus said her loving action would be remembered
as a “memorial” to her; and it was a
“memorial” to Him.
This kind of reading of a Scripture
passage, as you may know, is called “lectio divina,” “sacred reading.” One
tries to imagine oneself in a Biblical passage and imagine and explore, from
the point of view of a participant there what “exactly” is happening. This can be a wonderful time of reflection,
and the source of a poem.
+++
THE POEMS FOLLOW +++
ROAD
TO EMMAUS
There have been crucifixions, too,
in our town—innocents
gunned down in their doorways
or in school halls; or radiation’s
black outlines, three crosses
marked on a sister’s chest: no
wonder
we walk in quiet rage, musing.
And who, on this road, will join us,
seeming unaware
of the worst news in the
neighborhood,
but spelling out the history of the
prophets
and a future:
Ought not Christ to have suffered these
things
and to enter into his glory?
Could our hearts still burn within
us?
Will we ask the stranger to stay?
Break bread? And how
will our well-hammered and nailed
kitchens and bedrooms appear to us
when we understand who he is
just as he steals away?
Sandra
Duguid
© 2013
MEMORIALS
Yes, I indulged the moment:
setting my white heirloom box
next to his plate
at Simon’s dull table;
placing my hand on his hair
to anoint his head with ointment—
the room awoke, wavered
in perfume.
His friends complained:
Extravagance.
But how could I have spread thin
what ounce of wealth I owned?
I had watched this man
heal the blind and maimed,
heard him speak—
I was making amends for my doom.
And for his, he said,
though I wasn’t foreseeing a burial—
I’ve yet to understand;
we all die, I mean—eventually,
collapse,
we towers
of bone.
Sandra
Duguid
© 2013
SANDRA
DUGUID—FEATURED AT POETRY READING, SEPTEMBER 29, 2013
Sandra will read poems from her
book, Pails Scrubbed Silver, at a
poetry reading presented by the West Caldwell (NJ) Library. It will be held
Sunday, September 29th, 2 p.m., in the Community Room. Another fine
poet, Charlotte Mandel, will also be featured at this event. The program is
free and open to the public, but advance registration is required. Call
973-226-5441 or sign up online at: http://poetryreading.eventbrite.com.
Comments are always welcome
and appreciated.
Look for the next
edition of It’s All About…The Lamb, December
15, 2013
A FEW CLOSING WORDS…
Dear Subscriber,
A few days ago, in the very midst of the Days of Awe, on the twelfth
anniversary of the destruction of the Twin Towers and the horrendous loss of life
on 9/11, many of us gathered at Beth Israel Messianic Center in Wayne, New
Jersey, to pray for our nation and the world for a great wave of repentance among
believers and for unbelieving hearts to turn to Messiah in a mighty, mighty
way.
Have you surrendered your life to Jesus? Don’t delay. Ask Him to
forgive your sins and invite Him to dwell in your heart. It’s the most important
thing you’ll ever do…
God be with ewe,
Maude
After God’s Own
Heart Publishing
P.O. Box 2211, Woodland Park, NJ 07424
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