CENTRAL CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, PROVIDENCE, RI

The Lord

By Ilse Kramer

He is the song within the silence
He is the heart that beats in all our hearts
He is the knife that clears the wilderness
He is the road for every pilgrim
He is the key to paradise regained
He is the falling star the rising sun
He is the tears of all repentant sinners

He bleeds and falls
And yet He is the Lord forever
Forevermore

A Prayer for Lent and Easter

By Terri Leander

During this sacred season of Lent, may we observe the circumstances of our lives that are representations of our individual journeys to the crosses that we all bear: whether we express them openly or keep them in the dark tombs of the silence in our souls.

May we use these forty days, for penitence and prayer, building an ever deepening relationship and love for you.

O Thou, Our Great Redeemer, aid us in meditation and contemplation of all which keeps us from fully experiencing Your goodness and mercy. For our crosses are much too burdensome to carry by ourselves.

Dearest One, lead us so that we may follow you and walk by your side to nail our nakedness before you at the Place of the Skull, as our sides are pierced with the truth of our own shortcomings; even as we utter Your words, “Oh God, O God, why have you forsaken me?”

For it is only through your infinite love and sacrifice, that we find comfort and strength.

We pray that we may truly know the joy and wonder of Your rising from the cold, dark, damp grave upon that miraculous early Easter morn. Through Your resurrection, may we too, be resurrected in a new way of living, remembering that You are with us always ‘til the end of the age.

Let us rejoice with all our hearts and minds Your victory over death, so that we may live a life filled with forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace in Your holy name.

Beloved Savior and great Liberator, all honor, glory and praise be unto you.

Amen.

The Gift of the Rose

Susan Swain Tabor

By Susan Swain Tabor

That rose is free, he said to me
It’s been in its pot for an eternity
No one wants it – and neither do we.

Last chance or it goes into the trash!
I thought that that was rather rash
Seeing that it has potential to last.

Says the tag: Small and delicate is the bloom
A profusion of flowers by the month of June
Thorny but hardy, could blossom many a moon.

Rose, you silently called, I willingly came
We joined hearts in the relationship game
Together in life we lessened our pain.

I watered you, Rose, fed you all summer
Your beauty is such a delicious wonder
Our friendship endures, must not be plowed under.

You cheer me in moments when I am sad
To nourish your needs I am only too glad
Thank you for the closeness we have had.

Friend, it is no surprise to expect
When experiencing loneliness and neglect
We two can flower, showered by love and respect.

THE CONVICTING EXPERIENCE

By May Cornelia Grant

In middle age, in the midst of adversity, I found the gift of faith.
It seemed to be waiting, as if prepared from the beginning.
Above me, dark-stained ceiling beams cast deepening shadows.
Stair railings add another barrier in a set of angles.
Overhead curtains drawn closed above my sofa.
The scene appears: An open-sided shadowbox, a darkened stage.

I lower my head.
Slowly, out of the dusky shadows, a divine gift arrives–my first real prayer:
“God, are You there?”
It is at once a question and acknowledgment.
Then, more confidently, I announce, “I’m your daughter.”
The response enters without hesitation.

Without words, a wave of sound swells into freight train roar.
The power of a lifetime’s desires–
longing, craving, yearning, needing, wanting, hoping, wishing,
entreating, begging, pleading, demanding, anticipating–
all the unconscious, undiscovered, unrealized needs met at once, in a single moment, infinitely expanding.

It’s my very own Big Bang, so far beyond comprehension
that this poor report still wreaks its own attack on my gaze.

---

May Cornelia Grant has been writing all her life, non-professionally. Her articles have appeared in numerous small magazines and newspapers. This poem is an excerpt from her Lenten Meditation on Wednesday afternoon, March 3, 2010, at Wilson Chapel in Central Church.

Walking the Dogs in Winter

By Marge Leard

Adeep in tangled mem’ries of dreams gone bad,
What senses morning in this Winter’s cold?
No Summer brightness,
No yellow globe of piercing light,
No azure sky to greet my day.
Yet blooming in the eastern sky, a stealthy pink assails my lids.,
And I awake.
Not yet six o’clock and pinkness whispers,
“Look! See my beauty as I journey upward to your new day.”
It is quiet, this awakening,
Soft and stealthy as a kiss.
Pinkness spreads,
Acquires a golden streak,
Tinges cloud and sky alike.
In silence still, I dress,
Put on the many layers for a Winter’s morn.
The dogs are dancing at my feet.
They need no coats, no hats, no gloves, no light of dawn.
They frolic in joy of the graying morn,
In Winter’s cold and snow and dark.
At almost six, peace reigns on our private road
‘Tween woods and field and restless bay.
A brief sweet signal.
The chirruping song of cardinal,
The raucous call of crows,
A coyote trotting home from a night’s adventure.
Or perhaps a fox?
Its gray shadow, so like a dog’s, mystifies my urban mind.
But it has a bushy tail.
My dogs are curious, ears and nose alert, bodies still.
They seem to know to leave it be.
Their wild kin passes into bush on the side of the road
Only scent and shaking leaves behind, its memory.
And then the world erupts in loud complaint.
Canada geese, wave on wave ,vee their way
To a morning breakfast on the bay.
One hundred, two hundred, more.
Their hoarse cries volley in mad’ning distress
Against the indignant squeals of the gulls already there.
In the distance, a sound like thunder.
The early planes are leaving Green.
It is 6:10
Morning has come

Shear (Sheer) Joy

By
Hope Madison (for Ruth Edwards)

Maine’s twilight winds remain yet crisp,
Circumference of the moon a wisp.
Sheep huddle in the friendly barn,
Oblivious of colored yarn
Turned into sweaters, mitts and socks,
The while grandmother hums and rocks.
Like Hope the sheep are very sure
Their thoughts of you will long endure.

---

Hope Madison was a faithful member of Central Church for many years. She had cerebral palsy and was confined to a wheelchair. She died in 1997. Hope signed her poems: “Who Else,” “ Nobody Else,” “The Unknown Soldier,” or “Sosew.”

I like hugging and laughing.
Hi, I am Rose!
I never stop moving,
As everyone knows.

Don’t blow a promise,
But blow me a kiss.
A weasel’s a weasel
It is what it is.

When I’m talking to God,
I’m doing my prayering,
And I do hope He hears
Each word I am sayering.

Rose Dunlap

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Rose Dunlap, a Kindergartner at the Martin Luther King Elementary School is a very good gymnast.

Winter

by
Susan Swain Tabor

A Change of Heart

Winter

White
Barren
Dead

Wait

Footprints!
Rabbit…and …deer

Look

Faint buds on maples

Dormant

Not dead…regenerating

Winter

White
Waiting
Wondrous

---

Susan Swain Tabor is the great-granddaughter of CCC’s first minister, Leonard Swain, and is currently writing his biography. She is first and foremost a mother and a grandmother. Careers have been counseling disabled persons, agency management in the rehabilitation field, and general management and sales in a calendar company. She currently is a manager of family owned commercial real estate. She received her BA in English literature from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1966 and a M.A. in Counseling from Rhode Island College in 1980. Hobbies include gardening, growing vegetables in her large garden for the Food Bank, reading, and writing.

Ken Powell Ad Memoriam

By
Marcie Zuehlke

My friend died last night
He was mortal after all, at least his body is gone
His spirit will always be here ready to answer a thorny
Question with home-grown simplicity

I was beginning to think he had the cancer licked
Experimental treatments worked,
Tumors receded and disappeared
I was beginning to think God realized
He’d made a mistake in calling
Ken so soon and was going to make things right
But no, the Almighty had other plans

But I believe someday we will see Ken on the road to Emmaus

---

Marcia Zuehlke has been a nurse and worked for Hospice while raising a family.  She is now a painter. Her art has been shown in several galleries, including at Central Church. The Reverend Ken Powell was an Associate Minister at Central Congregational Church in the 1970’s. He died in October, 2007.

Winter Solstice

By Ilse Kramer

In the distance the swans
Looking like white clouds
Looking like black clouds
Glide through the ice on the pond

The small white winged birds
In the spun sugar bushes
Say nothing
At all

How many flakes
In a snowball
How many tears
On your lashes

Night falls
At noontime