Bread from heaven

Haiku for the hungry

We’re hungry, Moses.

More than hungry, we’re starving,

here in the desert.

Why did you bring us

to this barren place? We had

good food in Egypt.

We might have been slaves

but we never starved to death.

You’re killing us here!

God heard the complaints;

Fair enough, I’ll give them food,

teach them how to trust.

God had an answer.

I’ll rain down bread from heaven.

You can gather it.

Just collect enough

for each day. Don’t be greedy;

trust for the new day.

Except the sixth day;

gather enough food for two,

rest on the seventh.

There will be meat, too.

At evening quails arrived,

and with the dawn, bread.

‘Twasn’t strictly bread;

flakey stuff, cov’ring the ground,

but you could eat it.

In desert places

you have to keep trusting God.

That was the message.

Ken Rookes 2023

Hunger

Hunger

There’s no escaping a hungry crowd.

Even in deserted places there will be no hiding;

they find him.

To be fair, in our story, it was the disciples

who articulated the need for food.

Maybe the crowd has already

had its metaphorical hunger

satisfied.

Jesus fed me once.

I was hungry; for something

I couldn’t even name.

A spiritual something, an answer,

perhaps, to my bewilderment,

my anger,

my uncertainty.

At least, I think it was Jesus.

Dining on his story

I caught glimpses of hope,

along with tracings of grace.

These intimations

proved food enough to satisfy,

and in time, to value

both the uncertainty

and the anger.

© Ken Rookes 2014.

Unthinkable

You tell your kids as they grow older;
anytime, it does not matter.
We do not measure inconvenience,
nor will we mention it again.
We will leave our bed and we will come,
if that is what is needed,
to ensure that you will arrive safely home.
It is unthinkable that we should refuse.
Unthinkable, in the story Jesus told,
that a friend should decline
to embrace a minor inconvenience
for the sake of a simple request,
to fulfil the claims of hospitality
and to avoid shame.
Thus is delivered
bread for a hungry traveller.
Unthinkable that the Creator-Spirit God
should be too busy to listen,
should fail to love,
or should withhold
God’s Spirit-presence.
Unthinkable.

© Ken Rookes 2013