Stars and Carrots in the Kingdom of God

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Jesus is my Master and my friend.

Like most who have served in His Kingdom

I have fallen short of His Glory.

 

Jesus is awesome beyond comprehension.

He is His Father’s Son.

Jesus laughs.

Jesus weeps.

 

Jesus cries in fiery oratorian poetry

As people expectantly wait for baskets of bread and fish.

He overturns money changer’s tables in our man-made temples

While cracking a whip.

 

Bold as an effulgent yellow sun, ensconced in an arctic sky,

Shimmering in the frigid damps of dawn,

Jesus is not afraid to snap the traditions of men

With His strong, tanned fingers and articulate tongue.

 

Jesus has mercy on prostitutes and creates wine out of water.

He has compassion for sinners and Samaritans.

Jesus cuddles lonely children and regales them with dramatic tales

All the while He collects every childish comment,

Giggle, and rolling teardrop in their very own precious alabaster flask.

 

Jesus carries ancient stars and heavenly flowers in His pockets.

When necessary He dangles bright orange carrots on sticks

For lazy, stubborn donkeys like me.

 

 

Once when I was young and thin, I chased after a cute girl

Who had been willing to be my friend.

Neither of us had His stamp of approval.

I could only feel His presence, but I heard Him say out loud,

“You are a wild onager scenting the wind!”

I looked up the word onager in a dictionary after that.

When I reneged on my promise to go on a first date that night,

The girl went out with someone else instead,

And came back to work, never again fond of me, and also a mother-to-be.

 

Jesus is wise and stately

And usually conservatively attired.

I know from experience, though,

That at times, He also comes riding gallantly into the high-tides of my life.

Jesus skips off his sleek wooden steed like a pro

And jumps adroitly onto the undulating seafoam bordered beach

As His pearly white surfboard vanishes with a vibrant flash

Into a neat storage locker in another dimension.

A mystical dimension that does not know the salty tang of the azure sea,

The gently rocking dance of breeze-stirred palm fronds,

Or the shrill caws of gulls and the whistling wind songs of cockatiels.

 

On those days, while wearing palm tree festooned swim trunks,

A dazzling rainbow seashell necklace,

And an unbuttoned flamboyantly colored Hawaiian shirt that flutters in the wind,

Jesus smiles warmly and cheerily waves,

As He strolls unexpectedly, across the powdered sands, to sit with me.

Wayne O’Conner, December 2017, written for Kingdom Lessons Five: Stars and Carrots.