Backward Mutters

  • Fullness

    Fullness

    Note: This turns out to be a first draft. Who says you ever finish a poem? Why isn’t ‘done’? Well, I’m trying to do too much, especially with 14 lines. This sonnet takes its imagining from Luke 6 when the Pharisees’ charge that Jesus and his disciples are doing what…

  • Of Tax Collectors and Whiners

    Of Tax Collectors and Whiners

    At Grace Presbyterian we are in the midst of a series this spring called, “Walking with Jesus” in which we are following Christ to Jerusalem and beyond. Tomorrow’s passage is from Luke 5:27-39 for which I have previously written sonnets and which I include below. The painting is by Jacob…

  • Forty Days (The Fourth Temptation)

    Forty Days (The Fourth Temptation)

    This is a sonnet about what I imagine was the fourth temptation of Christ in the wilderness in Luke 4:1-13. Granted there are only three interaction with the devil, but the forth is really the temptation which preceded those temptations. Forty days alone, fasting in the desert was not merely…

  • Better than None (The Third Temptation)

    Better than None (The Third Temptation)

    This is the third of three sonnets based upon Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness as recorded in Luke’s Gospel. Luke 4:9-13 records the third temptation this way, And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the…

  • Down (The Second Temptation)

    Down (The Second Temptation)

    This is a sonnet based upon the second temptation of Christ in the wilderness. In this temptation, the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world in exchange for his worship. Though he answers in the moment with, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him…