The beauty of it all,
The knowing that we breathe
From forgotten to recalled,
The courage to believe
To give all and not receive.
Tear down your prison walls
This facade we build to decieve
Let your gratitude stand tall
Open your eyes and believe.
Abandon yourself to God,
Knowing He will never leave,
Let His spark become a lightning rod.
Spread God’s love and watch the Spirit stir up,
So Christ may draw them in and the Father lift up.
By Chris Clody 4/18/24
I’ve been gnawing on the phrase, “communication manifested” for the last week. It was a reference to the Holy Spirit who is the love between the Father and the Son. This love is eternal and unbroken. Compared to the love I show, let’s just say it has its “hesitations” at times. Today I invite you to realize the One who “comes alongside” of us as we carry the cross we are meant to bear. Truly, truly we are profoundly loved!
Blessed Holy Spirit
Communication eternally manifested
Between the Almighty Father and Son,
By a love so pure, constant, and time tested.
Wind, flame, dove, or spouse to a virgin’s son,
He is help for disciples’ life well lived.
The Eternal and Holy Spirit awaits,
Who hears and molds our prayers before there bid,
A lamp to our feet and a true soulmate,
The Paraclete that guides us to our fate.
The counsellor who gives the words to say,
Whose seven virtues may help liberate,
Ourselves and neighbors from sin that betrays.
Bless You Spirit for making us new creations,
Conforming hearts, mind, body and soul for our assumption.
By Chris Clody 4/2/24
A day of silent reflection
Fills the breath I take
Oxygen forms a connection
Loving all for Christ’s sake
Into His kingdom I escape.
Beyond a mental ascent,
But act when my heart aches,
To bring relief to torment,
To rescue neighbors from descent.
I enter through Reconciliation,
From reality’s lament,
His kingdom waits in anticipation.
Today is a day of profound reflection,
awaiting Sunday’s miraculous resurrection.
By Chris Clody 3/30/24
Set your mind forever free,
Unshackled and wild,
riding upon the rushing wind.
Thoughts glide upon the cool breeze,
Love floats undefiled,
Detaching from the grasp of Adam’s sin.
Prayer becomes the faith we see,
Innocent as a joyful child.
Goosebumps rise from the skin,
Chilled by eternal myst’ry.
Love lifts the lips to smile,
Finally healing the heart from within.
Following Christ will surely set you free…
Faith, hope, and love is Heaven’s guarantee.
By Chris Clody 1/16/23
There is a binding Lifeforce,
Replete with Animation
Gathering busy atoms
into forms of awe and function.
We are baffled by conscience,
Wonderstruck by imagination,
The soul’s a gift of mystery,
Beckoning human salvation.
The Creator of all things,
Is more than mere conception,
Rather God’s rousing of a
slumbering creation
The very act of common prayer,
A pull towards conversation,
Between created and Creator,
A Reconciliation.
By Chris Clody ~ 12/7/23
The seeds of grief,
Are gifted to us all,
Laying dormant for years,
Until dampened by our tears.
Then life turns over a new leaf,
Love braces itself before it falls,
Deep into the soil without fear,
Trusting a crack in the coffin appears,
Sprouting new life to angel cheers.
Trusting sorrows will be stolen by a theif,
A “God of Surprises” comes to call,
The assumption of a body we hold dear,
As the sprout breaks ground like a Roman spear,
The soul and body unite into Heaven’s tier,
Christ wipes away His good servant’s tears,
A room prepared by the Lord soon appears,
Lit by forgiveness over fear,
Truly, grief is a gift is abundantly clear.
By Chris Clody 10/22/23
What is the right side of history?
This is the bait to the fallen heart.
Faith begs our heart to kneel in humility, while the sparkling bait of oppressive ideologies, glittering half-truthes, yearning towards a needful rush towards progressiveness without a solution in mind.
There are two solutions,
One of faith in God’s love, mercy and justice,
The other fallen, distracted, and divisive.
God also casts its bait. A bait less attractive to the primitive needs of rebellion. For it is neither the right, left, or even the lukewarm middle that solve the human condition. Only the humble heart that realizes its powerlessness, can actually discern which bait is being pulled towards false or true human evolvement.
By Chris Clody
4/3/23
Luminosity,
Baptism within your rays,
My reality,
Twigs reach where Your warm beams lay.
Sunkist and dew-drenched growth gives way.
Within the Shadows,
Forgotten light. Cold entombed.
Where discontent stands opposed,
Angry of the light, I presume…
Death-dried twigs- life’s neglected wound.
Neighborhood eyes haunt,
Me – both bush and its tender,
Unwanted growth’s flaunt,
And lack of trimming rendered…
Oblivious to light-caused splendor.
The light will reveal,
Growth desperately needed,
Real sight not surreal,
Death desperately needed,
Offering true life its ideal.
Chris Clody 3/2/23
Waterbugs and Christianity,
Dance and flit upon the surface,
Satisfied by their reflection,
Except for the few who beckon us,
Out upon the dry, hot sand.
Despite, the drifting and sifting,
Where our feet are no longer cooled,
A narrow path is lit before and leading,
To a hill, with a faith yoked to a mule.
The desert is a lonely place,
Making our judgement joyful or cruel,
Yet my strength is not enough,
Beyond hope, it’s love that is my fuel.
Memories of the water,
Is both a burden and a grace,
A sense of ignorance and bliss,
Water-washed sin away its trace,
Dancing above it’s reflective surface,
But like that innocence- play must end,
As well as being enamored,
A call beyond this mirror to transcend,
To look out and up,
To those brave and honest,
Now comprehend…
What is it that draws some to the desert,
To let go and submit to what’s authentic,
To leave behind and detach,
It’s this simple question:
“Who do you say I am?”
“The Christ, or lier, or lunatic?”
Is the pond our baptism or playground?
For what is authentic Christianity?
Is it virtue building or self kenosis?
A performance to dazzle others,
Or a quiet fiat out into the cross of Christ?
Certainly we all first enter the dance,
Where self- expressions and piety are countless.
Rituals become needful in purpose,
A depth unveiling God’s hiddeness,
A glimpse of bread and wine,
Transfigures and glimmers in true presence.
This viaticum,
That is true food and drink,
Is meant for the journey,
That fateful walk,
Into the desert.
Godspeed,
To the brave little waterbug.
By Chris Clody
2/26/23
Jesus encourages all who are weary towards an exodus from their burden. Ultimately, it is a long road but together He will free us through a grace to forgive and repent. There is a sleeping remnant native to this land my heritage conquered. The massacre at Wounded Knee and the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement through their Trail of Tears. Forcing an alien culture upon the red man by white-washing away heritage in abhorrent coditions at Catholic boarding schools. Welcome to my Catholic shame! Incredibly this kidnapping and forced indoctrination was supported by this “land of the free” government. How dare white government actors use the word “indoctrination”. Was this when America was great? Another remnant was stolen from Africa through inhumane slave trade, destroying families, torturing the “disobedient”, abusing their women, and killing their weak. Other skin colors made by God added to our prejudiced entitlement and came to the United States just to blind encampment, and so on… Still to this day, we struggle with our stiff necks, to look back and fill in the forgotten experiences that obviously made us who we are today. Sadly, many pages in history remain unwritten by those in power over the pen. Still, Christ beckons for the red, brown, black, yellow, and white to trust that He has conquered this sin-filled world. Forgiveness is a birth of true freedom despite demonic politics of Florida. For me, a white man, a fallen man, must realize the task ahead of me. It, however, will be drawn by the hook of my Shepherd into a prayerful humility and painful ancestral repentance as the burning coals of His Forgiveness is heaped upon my head. This Christianity, is a religion of the poor, the downtrodden, the marginalized, and the persecuted. This is where you will find Him. You will find Him in the soup lines wrapped in unwanted clothes soaked by the cold rain. In God’s time, this Nation’s true natives will unite and gather all the “others” deemed less then deserving of their historical identity and show our fretful decline in pews what forgiveness looks like. I pray we all can hear the three blasts of the shofar, walk that mile with Christ, open our arms, and finay embrace our forgotten brothers and sisters somewhere in the middle.
We are only given so many heartbeats to imitate the One that was pierced for all.
His Peace, Chris
Christopher Clody 