I read this poem this morning, and it's getting to me in all the right ways—especially since I've stood at the Jordan River and seen them selling ice cream there. New Earth We wait for new heavens and a new earth. —2 Peter 3.13 Tourists came, too, to see John the Baptist ranting in the wilderness. They stood back, eating ice cream and watching the crowds in their awe, watching the scholars interrogate him. They liked the fire in his words, pretty sure it was meant for others. They had no idea about the “One” he was raving about. They had no idea even then the fire that sparks us all into being was falling, already consuming John, and the baptized, and the crowds, and the tourists and their ice cream, and Jerusalem, and the Empire, and the heavens and the earth, all of it consumed in fire and ashes, out of which a new world sprouts eternally, where we ourselves are the smallest seedlings. There are no onlookers to this fire. If you yourself are not burning, there is no flame. Steve Garnaas-Holmes Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net

Posted by Tara Owens, Abbess at 2020-12-08 15:32:07 UTC