Meditation on Mark 1:12, 13
No one you know gamely dons the duty
to get good news to those captivated
by the powers of this world, for so to do
means surely to spend some wilderness
time, time in the desert of your own days.
Looking for good news there, seems so futile,
yet you must make out good news to share it
and where to look for good news, if not there.
There's where the wild things dwell and if that serves
well to check your will and your discipline,
to test your patience and your endurance,
still who wants that, who gladly wills to be
so sorely tested as to face That Face.
You know you know what that's like, like falling
in a deep well of water deeper yet,
or seeping deep down into the pit of
your own soul hoping beyond hope to find
a way out only to be plunged way in.
Looking for good news there, seems so futile,
yet you must make out good news to share it
and where to look for good news, if not there.
The futility of this duty might seem
sufferable for forty days but you know
better than that, you know too well how deep
you must go to find the wellspring of news
so good as to show gleams of glory.
Forty days sounds a picnic in the park
compared to the life-long trial that awaits
all who would share the good news of release
from captivation, freedom from tempting
attentions and affections of your world.
Looking for good news there, seems so futile,
yet you must make out good news to share it
and where to look for good news, if not there.
Still it must be one thing to find yourself
in the desert by circumstance of choice,
another still to notice you're driven
there for some grand design not your doing
only to be tempted by the grandiose.
Even if angels wait the wings to serve
you at the point of your every deed,
will you know That, will you trust That,
and how deep will you plunge into despair
before giving up the ghost or your host.
Looking for good news there, seems so futile,
yet you must make out good news to share it
and where to look for good news, if not there.
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