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May God empower us, free us and humble us

To be His hands and feet

To be a blessing

Wherever we go

Wherever we are

Whether the world is watching or not.

 

Indeed may God deliver us from the need to be seen and applauded

So we might grow in the realization of a new freedom

To enter the hidden pastures and wide open spaces of His pleasure

 

May we enjoy the blessing of each other’s company as never before.

May each of us also enjoy our own company

In rich moments of reflection and silence and blissful aloneness

Soaking in the Companionship of our Savior.

 

May we take increasingly bold steps together

Challenging the frontiers of our comfort zones

Discovering divine courage and wisdom in our leaps of faith

As we protect the vulnerable and give voice to the voiceless.

 

And together may we taste more and more of His unity

So that, by His unfathomable grace,

We might be living evidence of His love.

 

First shared @church_arc:

 

For those being killed in the Philippines’ ‘War on Drugs’

 

Let’s call it out

that fluorescently scarlet

elephant in the room

 

Murder

the elected tool

of preference

 

Sweep away those

we don’t understand,

don’t want to deal with

 

Obscene reversal

not caring for the poor,

we cull them

 

Burst that elephantine balloon

blood stains across

our faces, our hands

 

Lament

and come to our senses

 

 

First published in ‘Orbis, Quarterly International Literary Journal’

Dawn

lark fills hollow halls 

of vastness, uncontainable 

sweet echoes of loneliness

 

Clouds scud the sky

impervious to my meanderings

 

Nature rebukes my quibbling

with the beauty of her ignoring

 

Yet embracing

 

Indemnatum

this unknown inclusivity

 

I am

the alien

immigrant, refugee

here

 

 

 

First published in Orbis; Quarterly International Literary Journal

As the approach of rain

Hurls tight twists the air

Into sudden moist swellings

Of imminence

 

Courage comes

Unwelcome friend

While lightening splits

Our worlds apart

 

 

 

 

First published in Rue Scribe: https://underwoodpress.com/ruescribe/2019/10/11/courage-when-i-need-it-by-ann/

 

Words hit the wheel

Slapped down soil

Grounded centre

Quality tested

Strained as

Spinning out

To impress

But will these mud walls

Hold all

I want to say

 

Kiln dried and glazed

Hues to please

Consenting eye

But all too brittle

Too small

To contain

Truth’s edge

Baked out earth losing

The voice

Entrusted me

 

Yet arching forms

Draw me in

To living clay

Beyond the vessel

For love

For freedom

Brokenness

Binds shards in gold

Our tears

Will mould

 

Our story

 

 

 

 

 

 

First published in The Voices Project: http://www.thevoicesproject.org/poetry-library/earthenware-by-ann-van-wijgerden

Lines grains molecules

Erupting into focus

Innermost inner most innermost

Much imagined parallel universes out there

Flipsiding

Imploding effervescence

Layers of essence

Worlds awaiting

In here

 

 

 

 

First published in ‘Genre: Urban Arts’:

https://www.genreurbanarts.com/lines/

 

Riding the earth as

we roll down the waves

of rhythm and truth

beauty

and dissonance

 

Victims of current

stirrers of medium

we all have our say

yet we all

fall silent

 

Ancient and newborn

in one fell swallow

come to our senses

in bitter

sweet night then

 

dawn we awake

sand on our tongue

 

 

 

 

First published in ‘Voice of Eve’:

https://issuu.com/richardholleman/docs/voiceofeve_issue16

 

 

 

 

circle of friends shrunk to a

cavernous zero

digital chatter

silenced

washed up on the shore

of independence

ejected from the sea

of circumstance

 

ripple of dark over green

velvet shimmering

ruffle of time caught

in a vision of fields

skimming the tracks between cities

of purpose

glorified limbo

 

melts

 

sweeping down stairways

surfing through tunnels

the magnificence

of this animal

humanity

 

 

First published in ‘Voice of Eve’:

https://issuu.com/richardholleman/docs/voiceofeve_issue16

 

 

 

 

In memory of all those being killed in the Philippines’ ongoing ‘War on Drugs’

 

I died last night

though death and sickness

were connected

(those all too familiar signs)

it was not my sickness

killing me

not my madness

sending five

masked men

 

Audience

cruelest of masters

you find entertainment

elsewhere

your backs the accuser:

I am

to blame

 

Eyes on my body

no politicking here

kumpadre

dampening hope’s dreams

with tears

unfulfillment laced

with life

not

for you

 

perhaps my children’s children

 

Remember my new friend

earthbound judge

her name

is

History

 

 

 

First published in ‘Voice of Eve’:

https://issuu.com/richardholleman/docs/voiceofeve_issue16

 

Jesus so identifies Himself with

the poor

the hungry

the sick

the prisoner

 

(the poor hungry sick imprisoned child)

 

the degree to which we love

or

abandon

them

 

we love

or

abandon

Him

 

 

Matthew 25:35,36:

I was hungry and you fed me,

I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,

I was homeless and you gave me a room,

I was shivering and you gave me clothes,

I was sick and you stopped to visit,

I was in prison and you came to me.

 

 

 

 

From a sermon given at Church Simplified, Manila on June 30, 2019:https://www.facebook.com/churchsimplified/videos/463688831098896/(starts around 39 min mark)