Bored in Church: Poetry to the rescue!

t is true; I have to admit it: I am ever increasingly bored in church. And I do believe with good reasons, but more on those at some other time. My saving grace has been to bring my journal and pen and see where my thoughts take me. One frosty Sunday morning, waiting for the service to finally be over, eyes glued on the glorious nature outside the large windowed wall of our sanctuary, I wrote the following poem (no doubt that it is self revealing), so all was not lost.

Oh you leafless tree

You bundle of bare, wooden arms and fingers

Frantically groping for new life

You pathetic and naked collection of sticks and twigs

Still bound to trunk and bark

How cruelly the maple orphans her stoic branches

And the mighty oak humbles summer’s lofty limbs

How humiliating this sapless slumber

How bitter this winter exit,

leaving pine and fir to take center stage

Cold and colder.

Dark and darker.

Until that long solstice night gives way to

Morning's magic light

Then all nature catches her breath

and is dazzled by the sight

Some mysterious Confectioner

has crafted from their boughs

A frosted bouquet of delight

O you leafless tree

Redeemed from your shameful uncovered state

Crowned with sparkling ice diamonds

Standing nobly before this Bavarian blue curtain

to receive a winter encore

For even out of your cold, dark, lifeless enemy,

Heaven has made something beautiful.