NEWS

​

(Editor’s note: writer and retired minister, Jody Seymour, Is taking our readers on an advent journey over the next weeks. Here is the first poem in the series.)

“A voice cries in the wilderness,
Prepare the way of the Lord.”
Isaiah 40: 3

Why does the cry need to
come in the wilderness?
Better the voice sound
from a mountain top
Its echo then would
resound for all
to hear

But some divine wisdom
chooses to make it
not so known
Seeking must be the
way to find the way
A strange figure will
again invite the seeker
to pay attention

Busy are would be pilgrims
so a necessary wilderness
will contain seeds of a birth
that can only be
found in the place
where busyness is
not welcome

Where is your wilderness…
Dreams unfulfilled…
Promises forgotten…
Hopes abandoned….
Faith too distant…?
To which wilderness
does the cry need
to come this season?

“Why the wilderness,” some ask?
The reason resides in
the need for us pilgrims
to know that love can
live in barren places

God is near in the wilderness
for those who will
give attention to the
journey whose end
leads to a manger

Which wilderness needs a
voice to announce
that though the way
seems absent of love
a flower of hope
will bloom
in the wilderness?

Prepare the way of the Lord…
for the world…
for you…