Luke 1:1-25

(Today my new journaling Bible finally arrived. I'm in love. Combo of Prismacolor and acrylic paint here. Wrote something to go with it below. Join me? I'd love to see what you're making. What does this passage mean to you?)

Incense in a tired old beard.
Decades of disappointment
have dug furrows in the face of faithfulness.

"This is not how I thought it would be,
but I will resign,
and I will resign though you slay me." 

Obedience makes for a long silence.
Yet every lost prayer
has come into the presence of God:
the prayer of expectancy,
the prayer of disillusionment,
the prayer of despair,
the prayer of resignation.

Until you expect nothing at all but to die
when like a punchline (do not fear) 
the time is ripe at last!

Old man, bite into the new kingdom
like a summer peach
with every tooth you have left
in your cave mouth,
dig in, dig in,
and let joy's run juice down your chin.