The choice

Haiku of testing

Forty days and nights

in the wilderness, driven

by the wild Spirit.

A time of testing,

hunger and doubt. Who am I,

what am I to do?

The testing man comes

with his tempting offers: Turn

these stones into bread!

You can have it all;

the power and the glory.

Worship me; it’s yours!

Make a big display!

Throw yourself from this tower.

Angels will catch you!

No. I will not take

the easy road. Love’s pathway

is not without pain.

My course is from God;

I choose it, it chooses me;

and the suffering.

The tester departs.

leaves him alone with his thoughts.

At least, for a time.

© Ken Rookes 2022

C is for coal

Pinnacles

Jerusalem,
always Jerusalem.
Luke takes us there for the third temptation,
his lastt of three. (There will be others).
Offered an alternative path, Jesus refuses.
No surprises here.
He is offered a big, spectacular event
to establish his divine credentials for all time.
It would be in Jerusalem,
with the temple, sacred and glorious,
pressed into service as the setting.
The crowd will gasp, not daring to believe
the evidence of their eyes,
when, from the temple’s pinnacle
a suicidal swallow-dive is arrested, mid-descent
by the proverbial flight of angels
and the man is allowed to float gently to the earth.
But it will not happen;
the temple, and all that it represents,
is being sidelined, it has no future,
as the hungry man determines
that there will be no short-cuts.
Jerusalem, must be patient
as he turns aside from the sensational,
preferring the more humble way
of gentle and generous love;
the journey is just beginning.
In the end
Jerusalem’s demands will be satisfied.
At the time of fulfilment he will be taken
to another high place, and suspended for all to see;
the angels will not save him.
The choice will prove painful, and full of sorrow,
but we are told that he did not come to regret it.

© Ken Rookes 2013