A Toy

 

A Toy

R. L. Withers

 

A toy – portal into imagination.

A toy not played with – sorrow.

Children who cannot play nor eat.

The belly of gluttony here; the belly of starvation there.

Do we care?

 

Building blocks never to be played with to build

Castles, homes, and skyscrapers.

Toy cars never to be driven on a floor.

Stuffed bears and dolls never to be hugged – is that a tear?

Do bears cry?

 

A toy box once full of hope, its contents now strewn about,

Each toy going its own way. - collateral damage they say. 

Little fingers will not grasp them, nor will little hands hold them,

Nor innocent arms embrace them.

Will little voices squeal with delight?

 

Will little eyes sparkle bright?

Little faces smile?

Little hearts beat with joy?

Or will the little ones not meet their toys,

Until they are both in the landfill of life?

 

Pounding, Pounding, Pounding

 

Pounding, Pounding, Pounding

July 6, 2026

R. L. Withers

 

Pounding, pounding, pounding!

The mock scepter strikes a blow!

Blow upon blow, blow upon blow!

How deep will the Crown of Thorns go?

 

Crown Him, yes crown Him!

Weave the crown of thorns for His Head!

Beat it down, beat it down!

Strike harder, strike harder – beat it down!

 

Who shall strike the hardest?

Which soldier shall it be?

Let me, let me!

I can pound it with more force than you!

 

Let the blood run, let it run!

Who can make it run the more?

Embed the crown into His Head,

Shall anyone take it off again?

 

Enough for now

More is to come

Remove the royal robe,

Put the scepter in the fire

 

But leave the crown,

O leave the crown!

For a royal crucifixion will be done

And a king shall be enthroned!

 

Pounding, pounding, pounding.

Pound the nails through His flesh,

Deep into the tree drive them deep.

Who can drive them the deepest?

 

Pounding, pounding, pounding.

I cannot sleep tonight.

A good day’s work was done indeed

But the pounding now haunts me.

 

Deeper goes the pounding

Into my heart and soul.

What have I done today

That there is pounding so?

 

I cannot sleep

And so I run

To the room where we

Wove the crown of thorns

 

I cannot sleep

And so I run

Back to that Hill

Where we drove the nails

 

I cannot sleep and so I look,

Look for His Body.

Where did it go?

Who took it?

 

Three days!

Three nights!

The pounding will not stop!

Sleep flees from me!

 

What’s that you say?

You were guarding His tomb?

An earthquake, an angel,

You ran away, deserting your post?

 

Where am I going?

Why I’m going to find Him.

I must find Him –

The pounding must stop!

 

My commander, my leader,

O he was so right when he said,

“Surely this is the Son of God.”

He was right, and I was a beast.

 

O Jesus, O Jesus,

Have mercy on me.

Let me find You!

Find me! Find me!

 

Now dear reader

You may write the ending –

What of this Roman soldier?

What of you?

 

The Winds of March

 

Our dear friend Carolyn sent us this note a few days ago. O how I miss Bruce...a friend and dear brother in our Lord Jesus.

Yet, his presence remains with me and I sense his continued encouragement in Christ.

Bob

Dear Bob & Vickie, I shared a poem Bruce wrote with my church family and wanted to share it with both of you also.

 

Spring has arrived and Resurrection Sunday is around the corner!

I wanted to share a poem my Bruce wrote in March 1991.

 

The Winds of March - Bruce Harrison

 

As flora all in blackness lies,

Seeds, roots, bulbs, ‘neath earthen skies,

The universe to them is this

Dormant state of uselessness

For all they know is here within

The dark confines of their skin

Still something woos them from above

Gently rustling songs of love

That irreversibly compel

Them to crack their hardened shells

Then toward the songs of love to thrust

Tender shoots, unheard of trust

When from the grave new life doth spring

And for love aspiring

To hear the wind and all He knows

Of the One to whom they grow

To listen to the wind proclaim

The Worthy, Spotless, Sacred name

And every living creature teach

How the depths of God to reach.

 

I am reminded that everywhere we look, we see the magnificent hand of God!

May you be blessed and encouraged as we approach Resurrection Sunday!

Love, Carolyn

By Good Powers – D. Bonhoeffer

 By Good Powers – D. Bonhoeffer

Translated by: Chris Zimmerman

(Written by Bonhoeffer while in prison)

 

Surrounded by the silent powers of goodness,

protected and secured against all fear,

so may I walk with you into the future

and confidently meet the coming year.

 

When burdens from the past return to haunt us,

when heaviness or evil brings distress,

O Lord, then grant our frightened souls and spirits

the saving grace that you’ve prepared for us.

 

And should it be our lot to bear with suffering,

to drink the bitter cup at your command,

may we accept it gladly, without trembling,

as offered by your good and loving hand.

 

Or should you give us happiness, or bless us

with earthly joys – with laughter and bright sun –

then too let us be mindful how you’ve led us,

and dedicate our lives to you alone.

 

O Lord, give us the radiance of candles

whose silent, steady flames burn through the night.

Lead us together again, if you so will it;

and shine upon our darkness with your light.

 

And as the silence grows and deepens round us,

give us the ears to hear the ringing sounds

of joyous praise arising from your children,

and echoing from the unseen world around.

 

By powers of goodness wondrously surrounded,

we’ll face tomorrow boldly, come what may.

God is with us each morning and each evening:

His faithfulness is certain every day.

 

Chris Zimmerman is a member of the Bruderhof and teaches at the community’s Mount Academy in Esopus, New York.

 

 

Faithful Cross, Above All Other

 By: Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus (c.530 – 609 A.D.)

 

1 Faithful cross, above all other:

one and only noble tree!

None in foliage, none in blossom,

none in fruit thy peer may be:

sweetest wood and sweetest iron,

sweetest weight is hung on thee.

 

2 Bend thy boughs, O tree of glory!

Thy relaxing sinews bend;

for awhile the ancient rigor

that thy birth bestowed, suspend;

and the King of heavenly beauty

gently on thine arms extend.

 

3 Praise and honor to the Father,

praise and honor to the Son,

praise and honor to the Spirit,

ever Three and ever One:

one in might and one in glory

while eternal ages run.

Wordsworth – Earthbound

This passage from Wordsworth’s The Excursion caught my attention:

That 'tis a thing impossible to frame

Conceptions equal to the soul's desires;

And the most difficult of tasks to keep

Heights which the soul is competent to gain.

—Man is of dust: ethereal hopes are his,

Which, when they should sustain themselves aloft,

Want due consistence; like a pillar of smoke,

That with majestic energy from earth

Rises; but, having reached the thinner air,

Melts, and dissolves, and is no longer seen.

I have often wondered how many of the great naturalists, and early protectors of America’s National Parks, failed to come to know Christ as Creator and Redeemer. I am less surprised today with the militant materialism that has abounded for generations, but even then I can be puzzled when I see how close men and women approach the Divine – and yet fail to acknowledge Him (see Romans Chapter One and Psalm 19).

In a lower key Wordsworth seems to be saying, “Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” While Wordsworth isn’t thinking about sin in this passage, he is struggling with the “higher” versus the “lesser” and the “transcendent” versus the “temporal”. Wordsworth does not know, and perhaps does not care to know, that when a soul is outside of Christ that the temporal brings us back to earth every time – no matter the heights to which we soar. Only Jesus Christ frees us from earth’s gravity.

Sadly, most Christians could care less as long as they are well-fed, warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Wordsworth’s aspirations put professing-Christians to shame. Perhaps Wordsworth will stand at the judgment and accuse us?

A Stone, Stones, the Cornerstone

A Stone, Stones, the Cornerstone

Robert Withers

A living stone, by itself, does not make a house.

How foolish for the stone to say, “I need no other stones.”

How foolish for a group of stones to say, “We need no cornerstone.”

Stones without a cornerstone, without the Master’s Plan,

Are but a pile of stones, rubble.

Many roll from one pile of rubble to another,

And we call each pile of rubble a church.

Only the Cornerstone gives life and order and purpose.

How foolish for a stone to say, “I am the Architect!”

How foolish for the stones to insist that they be placed where they desire.

How foolish for the stones to resist the work of the Stonemason.

How foolish for the stones to think the Cathedral is about them,

When it is to draw souls upward, to worship the True

And Living God.

Let us, in Him, be bound to one another.

Let us be a Place for Him to dwell.

Let us allow Him to fill His Temple with His glory.

Let us submit to the Master’s hand, the Master’s work,

The Master’s arrangement of all things for His glory.

(Ephesians 2:19 – 22; 1 Peter 2:4 – 8).

My Bush Burned

My Bush Burned

By Gerhard Frost

My bush burned this morning,

burned and was not consumed,

as I gathered with sisters and

brothers in the faith

for the ultimate act of defiance,

a Christian burial service.

My heart soared and sang

as I joined in the demonstration

and hurled the name of Jesus

into the face of the enemy,

Death

Never have I sensed so deeply

the heaven-sent boldness

of comforting one another

“with the comfort with which

we ourselves are comforted by God”

and taking to the streets again

with other comforted ones

under the defiant benediction.

The bush still burns.

I Love a Tree - by Gerhard Emanuel Frost

I Love a Tree

By: Gerhard Emanuel Frost

I have a love affair,

a very private thing,

with one familiar oak.

It grows ten paces from our door,

massive and strong and tall.

This tree comforts and encourages,

calls to me as I leave for my next class:

“If I can grow from a buried acorn,

forgotten by one absentminded squirrel,

perhaps you, too, an absentminded professor,

may say something today, and then forget,

something that may plant an oak

in the forests of humanity.”

So, I believe in acorns;

this is part of my teacher’s creed.

Unique among our trees,

this oak speaks.

It speaks of power and age,

and deep, deep roots;

but, most of all, it tells of suffering,

in its most stark and visible feature:

no major branch grows toward the east!

In some harsh moment of a long and testing past

my tree has felt disaster,

such force of tragedy that it must live its years

without the slightest symmetry.

Distorted, bent, unyielding in every wind

it wrenches at its roots,

but holds and stands to greet the dying winds

that mark the end of the storm.

This special tree,

I name it Job.  

The Cup

By: Robert L. Withers (through Christ's grace)

O Father let this cup please pass away

If it be possible, this I pray

I long to be with You always,

But to drink this cup is to drink the pain

And sin of all humanity,

It is to cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Born to drink this cup I know I am

From Mary’s breasts in Bethlehem to

This garden named Gethsemane,

Right named Olive Press, for my soul is

Pressed with impending death and separation,

And I will cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

From Mary’s arms to this garden cup

To sour wine offered upon the Cross

Which soon shall be, I’ll drink the dregs

Of humanity, of men and women,

Of boys and girls,

And as I drink my cry will be, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Down the corridors of time, from ages past

To ages future, as long as they shall last

I’ll go to each person who is living now,

Who has lived in the past and who shall live after now.

I’ll take their cups and pour in mine, their sin their death, all of their crime.

I’ll drink it down, all of their cups, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

My soul is sorrowful unto death,

I am pressed down with little breath

Left in this body, left in this soul,

But drink I must, and drink it whole, I must empty the cup

With all it contains, the death, the sin, the separation, the pain

And as I drink darkness will descend, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Who will watch with me this hour?

Who will resist Satan’s power?

Who will surrender his will to God?

Who will share my Cross, my shame?

Who will embrace Him who is despised?

Who will hear the depths of my cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

I drank your cup of sins, I drank them

Little or big; black or white lies it matters not,

They have all separated you from your God.

I drank your pride and ego too, I have taken into me

All there is of you, my cry is because I bear your sins,

I bear you too, you are in my heart as I cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

I must go now, my betrayer is at hand,

The cup I shall drink, it is in my Father’s plan,

I shall drink it for Him, and I shall drink it for you,

I shall drink the cup and enter the abyss of pain

And before the sun sets tomorrow, the heavens shall

Hear my cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

But know that you are my joy and I did this for you,

To bring you home to my Father, and your Father too.

For after that questioning cry on the Cross, will be

“It is finished.” “Father into your hands I commit my spirit.”

I drank the cup of sin and death for you, a cup I’d not tasted till I drank it for you.

I now offer you my cup of love and life - forged on the Cross; what will you do?