Worship
Crucifixion to Resurrection
Gosh It’s Cold
My Father’s Garden
Naomi
Unconditional Love
Gosh It’s Cold in Poetry Now Anthology, ‘Universal
Legends’ in 2003
Crucifixion to
Resurrection
"Crucifixion" - this year I really feel it -
the searing pain, the pain I can hardly bear
- let alone share with anyone else.
Buried hopes, buried dreams ?
No ! This is more than that.
If you bury something, you can dig it up –
this feels more final, like death.
Bereft and raw, don't touch me, or reach out to me
I might fall apart.
Leave me in my loneliness - dying with Christ.
"Not my will, but Yours"
How can You inflict on me such pain ?
Why do I have to go this way ?
If this is Your will, I don't want it -
I'd rather be cushioned, safe, peaceful, happy.
"Resurrection"
The only resurrection I can think of is Yours
(how can I be resurrected from this ?)
You went through the loneliness, the questioning,
the searing pain, the separation,
the darkness of hell - and LIVED !
I can't even bring myself to see - to hope - that far ...
but it happened to You
and so, through my pain, my bewilderment,
help me carry a tiny seed of love and hope
from within Your resurrection.
For a friend who had been deeply hurt
Good Friday 1 April 1994
Gosh it’s Cold !
I feel in need of an overcoat.
icicles all around,
even on my nose !
What’s happening ?
Can anyone tell me.
An awful witch went by just now,
terrified I was.
A friend of mine
has turned to stone.
What’s happened,
is everyone scared or me alone ?
And then I met a nymph who said,
‘Narnia is waiting for an Aslan !
He can turn Winter into Spring.
He can break hearts and bodies
of stone
and bring flesh alive again.
He will sacrifice himself
in the name of Love.
He is one for whom death holds no iron bars
over whom witches have no power.’
We shouted together -
‘Come, Aslan, come !’
Based on the story of Aslan in ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’
by C.S. Lewis
© Mags Scorey 6 Oct 2002
My Father’s Garden
Some call me a "wild" flower, but I'm quite placid really.
Others walk past me without a glance,
some pay more attention; they call me a "weed".
Others take more notice - hack me down, cast me aside!
Some - refreshingly - enjoy me, appreciate me,
take photos of me, affirm my presence.
I admit I stand alongside grass. dock-leaves and nettles
and may not be found in a rich man's garden
(except a perceptive one)
I may not decorate a lady's table
(except perhaps an enlightened one)
So you could say, justifiably, that I don't fit in,
I'm not part of the order of things,
I'm an outsider -
I don't deserve the space I'm living in.
But, I'll tell you this ! I have a dignity of my own,
I live the life I was chosen to live
My flowers are as beautiful as those of the purest rose
and in all kinds of unexpected places,
I brighten up a dull day
and enhance a sunny one.
Even though I may not be appreciated, I play my part.
My dignity comes from knowing -
that, one day, the whole of creation
will be restored - by the One who made it -
and I will be there or if not me, my grandchild
and you will see -
chrysanthemums - and roses
delphiniums - and asters
geraniums -and freesias
cauliflowers - and carrots
daisies and buttercups
stately oaks and elms
AND ME !
All together - in My Father's Garden !
© Mags Scorey 10 July 1994
Naomi
I felt full and happy, life was good;
then famine, exile, widowhood.
Shock upon shock ..
Pain upon pain ...
‘It will take a year’, they said, ‘to get over it’.
Ten years later and I still miss him.
Now I've lost my boys... how much more can I bear alone ?
Loss upon loss ..
I had to go home.
My daughters-in-law wanted to follow me -
‘What have I to offer you ?’, I said,
‘nothing but shadows, memories, pain’.
So Orpah went back to her land, to the sunshine.
But Ruth surprised me! ‘I'll go with you’, she said,
‘Where you live, I will live,
your people will be my people,
your God will be my God.
Only death will part us,
your resting place will be my resting place’.
That comforted me.
I tried, but could not dissuade her,
she had chosen the shadows -
she had chosen to share my pain
and so we went back to Bethlehem.
I tried to creep in unnoticed,
but they saw, questioned,
and exposed my poverty.
Ruth noticed and remained alongside me.
Orpah chose the sunshine,
but Ruth the shadows
and that choice, as the story unfolds,
made all the difference.
Based on Bible book of Ruth Chapter 1
© Mags Scorey 22 Aug 93
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Unconditional Love
Said Ruth to Naomi,
"I will trust you,
be faithful to you,
love you unconditionally.
I have watched you a while.
Although I could turn to the life that I knew -
to family, to friends and to roots -
there's something in you that I cannot forego.
And there's Someone drawing me on.
The way you are going is alien to me -
I do not know much about your land.
The God that you speak of, I don't comprehend
and no family or friends beckon on.
But I've made a resolve, I have said an, 'I will'
and I cannot, I will not, go back.
Even if you desert me, even if I'm alone,
even if the new land bears no joy
and the God that you speak of is gone.
There's Someone drawing me on.
Despite all your pleas that you've nothing to give
and it's best I stay near to home
I will trust and be faithful, love regardless of loss,
For there's Someone drawing me on."
Based on the Bible story of Ruth and Naomi - "Ruth said,
'Don't ask me to leave you! Let me go with you.
Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be
my people and your God will be my God.
Wherever you die, I will die, and that is where I will be buried.
May the Lord's worst punishment come upon me if I let anything but death
separate me from you!"
(Ruth 1:16-17 GNB)
© Mags Scorey Sep 1997
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