What Was Said
This is what Jesus said
to the deaf man: Ephphatha.
Be opened. This is what Jesus said.
This is what a painter said of love:
he said, Love is paying attention.
This is what the painter said.
Another, I forget who, said,
You can trust the present. That
is what she said. And as for faith,
one says, It is a verb, another says,
It is resting in the gamble, while for another
it is traveling miles and days
to that great and final lion
to be consumed — what an honor! —
consumed to the very bones.
Storm On Galilee
What’s instructive is not
that he walked on water
but that he seemed so unharassed
by the possibility of complete
and utter catastrophe. Yes,
it could all fall apart, he seemed to say;
yes, the storm could turn your little ship
into a sudden coffin — yes. Faith, he told us then,
is not trusting things will one day be better.
Faith is trusting things could never be better. No matter what.