Poets & Saints

ScriptureLuke 1:38 (NRSVUE)Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.RefrainI open myself to what God wants to bring to birth in me.QuoteMeister Eckhart"We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly, but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of Man is begotten in us."

ScriptureRomans 1:20 (NIV)For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.RefrainGod is more than any image I have been given.QuoteRichard Rohr, from The Universal Christ"Although Jesus was clearly of the masculine gender, the Christ is beyond gender, and so it should be expected that the Big Tradition would have found feminine ways, consciously or unconsciously, to symbolize the full Divine Incarnation and to give God a more feminine character — as the Bible itself often does."

ScriptureIsaiah 45:15 (NIV)Truly you are a God who has been hiding himself, the God and Savior of Israel.RefrainGod is at the depth of all things, including me.QuoteRichard Rohr, from The Universal Christ"I doubt if you can see the image of God in your fellow humans if you cannot first see it in rudimentary forms in stones, in plants and flowers, in strange little animals, in bread and wine, and most especially cannot honor this objective divine image in yourself. It is a full-body tune-up, this spiritual journey. It really ends up being all or nothing, here and then everywhere."

ScriptureEphesians 2:4–6 (NIV)But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.RefrainThe image of God cannot be extinguished.QuoteWalter Wink, from Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way"There is no one, and surely no entire people, in whom the image of God has been utterly extinguished. Faith in God means believing that anyone can be transformed, regardless of the past. To write off whole groups of people as intrinsically racist and violent is to accept the very same premise that upholds racist and oppressive regimes."

ScriptureHebrews 4:15 (NIV)For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet he did not sin.RefrainChrist is present in the depth of all things.QuoteSt. Bonaventure"As a human being Christ has something in common with all creatures. With the stones he shares existence, with plants he shares life, with animals he shares sensation, and with the angels he shares intelligence."

ScripturePhilippians 2:7 (NIV)Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.RefrainChrist came for all of me.QuoteNikos Kazantzakis, from Report to Greco"One day the religion of Christ will take another step forward on earth. It will embrace the whole man, all of him, not just half as it does now in embracing only the soul."

ScriptureGenesis 2:15 (NIV)The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.RefrainThe gate of heaven is everywhere.QuoteThomas Merton"We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. God manifests Himself everywhere, in everything — in people and in things and in nature and in events. The only thing is we don't see it. I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere."

ScriptureLuke 12:49 (NIV)"I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!"RefrainThe fire that refines me is taking me somewhere good.QuoteRichard Rohr, from The Universal Christ"I am afraid many of us have failed to honor God's always unfolding future and the process of getting there, which usually includes some form of dying to the old. In practical effect, we end up resisting and opposing the very thing we want. The great irony is that we have often done this in the name of praying to God, as though God would protect us from the very process that refines us!"