Dear Lord, my soul feels like a empty well, where are you when I feel Ike I need your hide my feelings from you?
Just as Zacchaeus hid up in a tree from you for fear of being seen by you, a tax collector, I also hide from you.
Lord, the silence in my room matches the silence in my soul.I look for you, but find only empty space.
My prayers feel like they hit the ceiling and fall to the floor.Why have you hidden your face from me?
I am weary, thirsty, and longing for a drop of your presence.Yet, I will remember the times you were near.Even in this darkness, I choose to wait for your dawn.
Lord, please come to your church empty, a mask I do not wear. I vine as I am, just as you created years ago, a baby baptized after birth, no waiting allowed, no pomp and circumstance, where was my family?
I wake up each and every day, I lift my body out of bed, yet I wonder why, who’s going to see or look at me.
I will lay here in the field of wild flowers as to seek their beauty for my own.. staring up into the sky, Come My Lord into my heart, your daughter who is empty no longer asking for Help..
In the land that I was born
there is a man who takes from the sun,
he takes from the moon, from the earth's womb,
he takes from the sweat on your brow
and the bread from your mouth.
He calls himself the Taxman,
the collector of duties,
he hardly builds any roads
nor bring bread to your table,
but takes from your hunger,
and your thirst,
and your pain.
He taxes the laughter of children,
he taxes the weeping of mothers,
he taxes on buried,
and the newborn laced in swaddling clothes.
What has he given in return?
Silence, iron bars,
and the rattling sound of chains
under the weight of yokes unseen
that we are all forced to wear.
And so I ask, O Tax Collector,
under what rock have you hidden the sun?
Where has the harvest of our labors gone?
What have you done for the people
that toil in open fields
and sing songs of forgotten hope?
Traitorous tinges were seen in Levi. Did he love Rome?
Could patriots ever bear their disloyal citizens?
As a tax collector, he's a stranger to his own home.
Amidst selfish motives, Matthew had his magnificence.
Guilt boiled in his mind, like the blood of a lamb in an urn.
He heaped mammon, like hills and mountains, in every corner.
Though, like ice, he looked cool, within, like a kiln, he did burn.
Is wealth alone enough? Shouldn't he have human honor?
Jesus called him. Like a dog that found the bone, he followed
When a magnet pulls, does a rusted rod dare to resist?
He felt, as though by a celestial power, he'd controlled
Before Jesus, he felt, as though nothing seemed to exist.
When Jesus diagnosed his illness, Matthew felt at ease.
Struggling through a desert for long, he found an oasis.
If your brother sins (against you)
Go and tell him his fault between you and him alone
If he listens to you
You have won over your brother
If he does not listen
Take one or two others along with you
So that 'every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses
If he refuses to listen to them
Tell the church
If he refuses to listen even to the church
Then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector
Amen, I say to you
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven
And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven [MT 18:15-18]
The Pharisee took up his position and spole his prayer to himself
“O God
thank You that I am not like the rest of humanity-greedy
dishonest, adulterous-or even like His tax collector.” Luke 18:11
While visiting my daughter’s home
Llast summer
I noticed that weeds undertaking
Her luscious flower garden
Although I resisted the impulse
To mention it to her
I still will judge her a little
Any feelings of superiority I had quickly vanished
When I watered my yard later
That day and discovered an abundant crop of weeds in my own garden
How easily tempting today on so many levels
Both personal and corporate
I know that it is only when I take time for quiet meditation that I notice where my sincere desire to grow in faith
Hope and love has become tainted with self-righteousness
Terri Mifek
Turned to Poetry: Jac R. M.
Poetry Form: Free Verse
knock knock
who's there
tax collector
knock knock
who's there
tax collector
knock knock
knock knock
knock knock
tax collector
shhh maybe
he'll go away
(later that day
too agoraphobic
to go out and
play came
another rapping
almost rasping
upon my
chamber door)
knock knock
knock knock
knock knock
(a voice using
a bullhorn sighed
then said) i
know you're in
there
(no subtlety
has Death)
Who is my reader? My reader is my guest
In the secret of his corner of host
He welcomes me as an instructor or tractor
In the sector of her golden mind
She listens to me as minister or tax collector
Who is my reader? My reader is my leader
My reader is my adviser, my redeemer
Transports me from writer to author, messenger
Elevates me from speaker to preacher, immortal
Promotes me from player to director, instructor
My reader is my uncle, my reader is my anchor
In the dark street of his solitude, altitude
He accepts me as nephew or follower
In the cold corner of his addiction, condition
He sings along with me as inmate or soul-mate
Fight me with ,his muscles brown, wrestler
Read me with her avid eyes full of tears, lawyer
Who is my reader? My reader is my listener
In his mental imagery, he scans me between lines
He portrays me as storyteller or fortuneteller
Scrutinizes me between my words, inspector
Who is my reader? my reader is my provocateur
Who is my reader? My reader is my challenger
My reader is my mother,my reader , my mentor
my reader may be a writer,my reader is my printer
If every tongue were stilled the stones would turn and sing
For as the Father has willed so too shall His only Son bring
Curing all the desperately ill, enabling the blind to now see
Eight Beatitudes from atop a hill as later He'll a calm a sea
Seeking out a woman at a well or a tax collector in a tree
They would then go to tell how the Lord had set them free
All those demons Jesus cast out like the one's here today
And yet people sink in doubt and don't even bother to pray
He walked on that turbulent sea and commanded the wind
Dying to set us free as it was only He who had not sinned
Just the power in such a voice and such a love in His Heart
Look at how His People rejoice in knowing they are a part
He changed hearts, minds and ways He can change you too
You owe him all your praise despite the conclusion you drew
Changing water into wine such a transformation that's true
Pickled by an earthly brine is not what He planned for you
He was a man of short stature and a little over weight too
A tax collector always wanting more, sort a like me and you
But on that one day when our Lord Jesus had come to town
He tried making his way if even to just see His pure white gown
But he was too small and over the large crowd he could not see
So in order to be just as tall Zacchaeus decided to climb a tree
And as the Lord came near He looked right up at Zacchaeus' face
Calling him down by name He made clear the work of God's Grace
Jesus said come down Zacchaeus immediately I will eat at your place
Now all the others this they would see and wonder why such the case
But to them Jesus paid no mind and ate with whom many called a thief
As it was always the sinner Jesus would find to all of the others disbelief
For as together they ate it was this simple sinner who came to repent
As the others had to wait in not really knowing what Jesus' Words had meant
Zacchaeus gave away half his money and paid back four times what he stole
For now this simple man could see that all true gold is stored up in the soul
Luke 19:1-10
Antoine Lavoisier
A pioneer in chemistry in his day.
A royal tax collector he was made.
He lost his head with a guillotine’s blade.
Greek apostolos = someone sent, messenger
The names of the twelve apostles are these
First Simon, who is called Peter [Roman Catholic’s 1st pope] and
Andrew his brother
James the son of Zebedee
John his brother
Philip
Bartholomew
Thomas
Matthew the tax collector
James the son of Alphaeus
[Judas [Jude]] Thaddeus
Simon the Cananaean and
Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him
Mt 10 2-4
11302011
TOWNSPEOPLE:
A MURDER IN THE NIGHT!
A MURDER IN THE NIGHT!
OUR VERY STREETS ARE FILLED WITH FRIGHT.
MAYOR:
A MURDER IN THE NIGHT!
OUR TOWN IS FILLED WITH DARKNESS
IS THERE NOT A LIGHT?
TAX COLLECTOR:
A MURDER IN THE NIGHT!
IS THERE NO LOVE OR HAPPINESS?
IS THERE NOT A LIGHT?
IS THERE NOT A LIGHT?
TOWNSPEOPLE:
HELP US GOD, FOR WE HAVE SINNED
HELP US THROUGH THIS TROUBLE THAT WE ARE IN
A MURDER IN THE NIGHT!
A MURDER IN THE NIGHT!
OUR VERY STREETS ARE FILLED WITH FRIGHT.
IS THERE NOT A LIGHT?
IS THERE NOT A LIGHT?
PRIEST:
OH, DEAR GOD! HEAR MY PRAYER
REACH DOWN WITH YOUR HAND, AND SEND US THE SAVIOR
IS THERE NOT A WAY?
IS THERE NOT A WAY?
HELP US THROUGH THIS EVERLASTING DAY
WILL THIS BE THE DAY,
THAT JUSTICE CALLS OUR NAME?
TOWNSPEOPLE:
A MURDER IN THE NIGHT!
THE TERROR THROUGH OUR LIVES.
CAN THERE BE A WAY?
THROUGH THIS EVERLASTING DAY?
IS THERE A DIFFERENT WAY?
TO END OUR LASTING SHAME.
Two men went up to the temple to pray,
A Pharisee, a publican, each a different way.
The hypocrite stood up and prayed out loud
In his priestly robe with lofty eyes so proud,
"God, thank you that I'm not like any other man,
The extortioner, unjust, the adulterer - this publican!
I fast twice a week unlike those who transgress
And I give tithes of everything that I possess."
Then the tax collector standing at a distance
Would not lift his eyes in his disdainful existence.
He beat upon his breast with his lowly thoughts, inner,
While saying, "Oh God, be merciful unto me a sinner."
So that man went down to his house justified
Rather than the other in his vanity and his pride,
Who says, "I am holier than thou so keep away;
Stand by yourself, " for he is a fire that burns all day.
He shall be downcast for how he has misbehaved;
Yet, the contrite is lifted... the humble person is saved.
He's exalted in due time and under God's hand is graced,
But the haughty is resisted by Him, opposed and abased.
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