Easter Intercessions

World

Dying you destroyed our dying
In resurrecting, bring us into new life.

We ask that you – by your Holy Spirit –
Bring your heavenly kingdom
Here on earth.

Peace where there is conflict
Healing where there is pain and suffering
Freedom where there is oppression
Wisdom where there is authority
And Life where death prevails.

Your Kingdom come.

Church:

Dying you destroyed our dying
In resurrecting, bring us into new life.

On this day you made all things new
A bride you chose,
Washed her feet with blood and tears
Heart by your Holy Spirit
Spirit by your rising.
In this your church, may your will be done

Peace where there is conflict
Wisdom where there is authority
Humility where pride has shoots
Healing where there is pain
Freedom and love where oppression roots

Your will be done.

Us:

Dying you destroyed our dying
In resurrecting, bring us into new life.

By your stripes we are healed
By your wounds – holes in renewed hands –
We are brought into wholeness:
Into new life.

Grant your healing to all who are unwell
that they may be made whole in body, mind, and spirit.

Peace where there is a stirring
Healing where there is infirmity
and life
and life
and life

Cast your gaze upon us, look into the deep.
When we hunger, give us food that satisfies
when we thirst, quench us by your Spirit
Give us living water.
Wrap us in your love
and in your rising, raise us up

For the Kingdom, the power, and the Glory
Are yours.

© Denis Adide 2014

 

#Return

Ashes to the Penitent: Dust to the everlasting
#Return

 

The same hands that lay the palm leaves
beneath the donkey’s hooves,
Hammer the nails in,
Received the pieces of silver,
Unsheathed the sword,
Rolled the dice, and the stone,
Prepared with care the crown of thorns,
Received the bread, and the wine,
Counted the accomplished Baskets,
And thrust the spear into His side.

Can these same hands now put down nets,
and nails, and coins;
and foods, and altars, and stones
(from stoning each other,
from stoning Him);
Put these down to take up compassion,
to seek the one their hearts reject;
to stand alongside the One upon whom a cross,
nails, and a crown they placed.

Without Love, all is vain.

©Denis Adide 2014

“Remember that you are dust
And to dust you will return
Turn away from sin
and Look to Christ”

Awaken

Son of a man, what do your eyes see?
Are they covered: veiled
By what these wrought things draw forth?

Son of a man, what do your eyes see?

Footprints my LORD,
And a great scroll floating on a fire:
Unconsumed.

Son of a man, what do your eyes see?

An altar my LORD,
And a ram slaying a lamb,
Blood washing over a fountain of tears

Son of a man, what do your eyes see?

A thousand voices crying,
Sorrow perched upon a throne,
With a crown that does not fit;
And dark robes.

Son of a man, what do your eyes see?

A bowl full of seeds,
A staff resting at the foot of the shepherd;
and sleeping sheep.

Son of a man, what do your eyes see?

Bones dancing in the rain,
flowers in the desert,
Wolves, without bloodshed, satisfied.

Son of a man, what do your eyes see?

Upon a cloud salvation,
Upon a donkey hope,
Upon a tree cursed freedom bound
Upon a table, a new thing:
Love woven into flesh
Life into clay.

Son of man, answer me.
Who dictates where upon the stem,
the bud emerges?
Who carved each grain of sand?
Who paints the day and keeps watch over the night?

It is beyond my knowing LORD.

Then, son of a man, awaken
Slumber no more.
Shake the sleep from your eyes so they may see.

© Denis Adide 2014

Poetry 034: The seat

Note to the son 2:

They tell stories of sons and Fathers
Of names passed on, with love and luggage;
Tales of love, passion, compassion, courage,
longing, sorrow, and rites of passage;
Hammers, nails, paints, and screws,
waiting patiently in absence for news.
Sulking quietly in pebbled mews
after leaving the playing fields
assailed by apparitions –
the visions of happiness,
Fathers and sons arm in arm with dog leads,
kite strings: heart stings – like wasp stings
inciting anguish where absence flourished
and the word unspoken never became flesh,
like songs they linger, hovering over the deep,
Keeping without form, void of love:
There are no parting skies here,
no falling dove, no world of Love,
no baptism, and indeed no name,
not pat on the shoulder.
Just the boulder – unassailable emptiness –
pressed down by these long tales they tell.

Maybe as I sit recounting what ails,
my hope is that in my edicts –
sorrowful they may seem –
are sinewed songs to entice you to –
in your grand oddessy – settle by my shores
And change the colour of the ink I use,
Scent the pages, accent the alphabets,
give prominence to my loftier notes,
amplify the chords that bind me together,
roof the house that leaks
and light the fire.

And light the fire

light the fire.

© Denis Adide 2013

 

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A thought on a Psalm

Vindicate me, O LORD for I have led a blameless life,
I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.
Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my heart and mind:
For your love is ever before me, and I walk continually in your truth.
I do not sit with deceitful men, nor do I consort with hypocrites;
I abhor the assembly of evildoers and refuse to sit with the wicked.
I wash my hands in innocence, and go about your Altar, O LORD,
Proclaiming aloud your praise and telling of all your wonderful deeds.
I love the house where you live, O LORD, the place where your glory dwells.

Psalm 26:1-8

Denis 26:8 [between 9 &10 pm]

Will you vindicate me? I have not led a blameless life,
constantly I doubt your hand and presence in my life.
My faith wavers like a flag: steadfast in the wind
and baren in the still. I forget you till I need.
My inner heart does love you, but my hands resist;
opting rather to sing in dishonesty.
Though I avoid deceitful men, my tongue is just as adept
in my solitude I find a hypocrite.
I long to do great evils and admire the seats among the wicked.
My hands still stained, and the stench of dishonour upon me,
I dare to approach your Altar. Not in penitence,
but masking my guilt from my companions.
For fear of shame I bite my tongue, hiding praise for you
beneath my pride: sourced from the gifts you give me –
I, too quickly, forget your wonderful deeds.
If you don’t, with my guilt before me, who will?

2012.

Poetry 034: The seat

A poem about a blind poet

Seated, he heard the foreign sounds
Of passing cars, of children, of hounds,
Of planes sailing through the clouds
Of silent moments, and of crowds.
The wind through the leaves whistled
The bamboo heaved along with the thistles
Distant worlds in torrents neared
But window blinds blocked out the mounds

Seated, he thought to find the nouns
For subtle smiles, for tickles, for frowns
For faces floating from the downs,
through greens, through forests, and through towns.
Deep within old cinders glistened
He strained his heart so it would listen
And the world without in torrents neared
But window blinds blocked out the mounds

© Denis Adide 2011

Poetry 033: Live!

“Let us make man in our own image
and in our likeness form him.”

Perfected yet dead; still he lay
void, recent from the deep.
No thoughts emerged nor receded
None pleaded for victory, none defeated,
And none rebelled: He was balanced,
inanimate, formed but still,
alive but perfectly dead.

Then breath, hovering over the deep;
the same that churned him from the mound,
approached from steep heaven
and un-barrened sea to seep
Awakening earth from death to sleep.

Inhaling, he embraced life – the gift;
drifting into the breath that once crept
into the crypt – fleshy heart at the mercy
of fleshed earth – made first animate.

Before him he saw his naked arms,
with naked eyes saw naked feet,
felt naked air be drafted in
and blown on naked skin.
Untamed wind within,
unchained wind without,
both whispering “Live!”

© Denis Adide 2012

 

Poetry 032: Happy Father’s day

Your absence –
felt more than empty clouds,
or late rains after hot days,
or delayed snow in the cold,
dark winter months,
or breath withheld
by clasping hands,
the dry well,
a moonless night,
shadowless willow,
no pulse on a flat line –
is killing me.

My heart –
like new shoots,
empty young beaks,
and soft small fingers –
reaches out,
calling
weeping
….
immersed in the hope
that wherever you are
on this, our day,
you’re happy.

© Denis Adide 2012

 

 

and to all who received him, all who believed. He gave the right to be called the sons of God

Poetry 031: Recompense

How am I to face the eyes of pity
that will surround and follow me
the rest of the days before they all
begin to forget, Knowing that I,
for the love – yours – sowed within,
am reaping eternal – internal – grief?

I can’t unless you give it all back.

I had enough love for four lifetimes
and more, all you to do was ask;
all you had to do was talk, take,
walk, live… give – a little.

Set my heart alight – immolate –
this rebellion must succeed.
Failure ensures my mind recedes,
past the faith I held, as the torch of old
that with coloured rings made a whole
of the hemispheres. Once to love,
and to hold, but lo! and behold the bold
did to frailty fall.
Forsaking the rollings stones, they became
immersed in moss. covered in the green
they gave way to the mud that slowly
inched over inches to make six feet;
and ashes – once oaks – returned to dust:
the crowds, like the vicar, slowly left
pinching more earth and spraying them
over the flowers – like the memories doomed
to rot and die – that adorned the lonely casket.

The groom, escorted by all into the sepulchre,
now slept. His weeping stilled by the thick
air, lightly lit, hovering between the stained panes
that crowned the walls. Prayers unheard,
like insence, floating hazily; kept in by
the sooty roof.

When they bury the dead, everyone leaves
except the dead. They stay, singing to the stars,
unrequited songs of love, of hope, of floating dreams
in tins unsealed, of loss encountered in daring
for victory, of death, of end without end,
of conflicted beginnings, of afflicted unamended –
untamed – …
Their affectations slowly, like their flesh, disappear:
Unheard once covered, unseen once left.

I can’t unless you give it all back.

What hurts is the hand that held the blade
and not the merciful blade itself. For edges,
sharp or blunt, have no master, no loyalty,
nor judgement. They serve hearts, and hands,
and feet, and thoughts grown to become deeds,
and deeds done in attempts to undo others:
be they dreams once seeded, now rejected
as shoots – unplucked but doomed to die.

uprooted into insignificance, like a drop of rain
falling from the clouds onto the surface of the sea,
drifting. One among many drops; no longer a drop.
At once sea, no mercy but what is given me,
no power nor self. Shelved until the improbable:
the currents drift me back up into the realms
of elevating rays. For now though, and maybe
forever, the abyss awaits, and hell.

And I can’t unless you give it all back:
all of it, in it’s separate pieces and moments;
spots that form the person that, within your
supposed love, I grew to become: grew
away from being.

© Denis Adide 2012

 

Something new

For all the human handiwork it displays, the bible remains a peculiar holy book. I cannot think of any other text that has such authority over me, interpreting me faster than I can interpret it. It speaks to me not with the stuffy voice of some mummified sage but with fresh, lively tones of someone who knows what happened to me an hour ago. Familiar passages accumulate meaning as I return to them again and again. They seem to grow during my absences from them; I am always finding something new in them I never found before, something designed to meet me where I am at this particular moment in time.

Barbara Brown Taylor

And in reading God’s word, he most profiteth not always that is most ready in turning of the book, or in saying of it without the book; but he that most tuned into it, that is most inspired with the Holy Ghost, most in his heart and life altered and changed into that thing which he readeth; he that is daily less and less proud, less wrathful, less covetous, and less desirous of worldly and vain pleasures; he that daily (forsaking his old vicious life) increaseth in Virtue more and more.

Thomas Cranmer

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