No Greater Love

You wait for me.You wait upon me.
You wait for a return of love.

The heights that bar our union are great,
But No Greater Love
Springs o’r the mountains.

No Greater Love leaps the hills,
To stand outside my gate,
Singing songs that stir my heart.

Scale my many walls, O Love!
Find me here ready.
Anoint my head, my soul, my mind.

No Greater Love delights
To pour Eternity upon me,
With an exchange of wedding vows.

© 2016 Joann Nelander

“The sound of my lover! springing across the mountains, leaping over the hills” Song of Songs 2: 8

Miracle of Days

New day, the world awakens.
Blue Earth still hung
Among the stars,
Spinning and orbiting.
We rise once more,
Unfazed by planetary whirl.

Sunshine at my window,
Here we go, again.
Out of the bed,
Onto a floor,
Solid ‘neath my feet,
Oh, what a grand illusion.

Without qualm,
In phase with the heavens
The world of men
Slept in surrender
To the slumber
Of the night.

Peace, born of Faith,
Anticipating the morn,
Believing dawn would again.
As done before.
Life, a celebration
Risking response.

All creation rising,
What will you
In your doings?
Your mark, your glory!
Waste not a quark!
O, Miracle of Days!

By Joann Nelander

International Space Station – view Earth’s Countries and Coastlines

Fleeting Prayers–Arrows to God’s Heart

Fleeting prayers,
Known but to God,
Recorded in His Heart.
Nothing wasted.

All to flower and  bear fruit,
Supplying for the need
Of His People, His Bride, His Church,
Reaching through Time,

Nothing wasted,
Nothing forgotten,
All in flower,
All bearing fruit.

Fleeting prayers
Known but to God
Nothing forgotten
Arrows to His Heart.

By Joann Nelander

Deliverance – Help of Archangels

Candle and Flame

Come Holy Spirit.
I am as a candle
Awaiting Your flame.

Come over me,
As a tongue of fire,
Licking higher
As the Wind of Your Spirit
Blows by me and through me.

I am meant to be flame,
Warming a world,
Darkened and cold,
In need,
In Sin.

Here I stand,
Before Your altar,
Simply, one in You,
In Your One Holy, Catholic, Church.

It is You Who send Your Spirit forth.
The flame that arises in my being
Touches the world about me
With Your ministrations.

My presence brings Your Presence.
As I bow humbly in stillness,
It is Your Who light the wick of another,
Spreading Your Light
As I but incline, believing.

Such is prayer,
Such is hope,
Such is mercy.

Come Holy Spirit,
Light the world on fire,
One candle enkindling another,
And another.
Thy kingdom Come.

© 2016 Joann Nelander

Light me as a candle.

Live Video Feed Earth From Space Real Footage | (Multi-Cam)

International Space Station- Live

As An Eagle

Lord, Most High,
Most Good,
Most Holy,
As an eagle, soar our nation’s skies,
Look down and take pity on a people losing their way.

See us as we struggle.
See our deceivers.
See our cherished deceptions.
See our broken law.

The weight of haughty deception,
Oppresses a people,
Fearing the gift of Life.

It is hard to juggle our many gods.
To our folly,
Mammon has supplanted our love for You.

Resisting Your Love.
We choose Death
As an answer to Life.

We think the blessing, a curse,
And the curse, a blessing, nay, a right,
Negation the same as something, someone.

Give Your People Your eagle’s wings,
To scale the heights
With You.

Carry us on Your strong pinions
To safety in the clefts of the Rock.
Hide us in Your Sacred Wounds.

With an Eagle’s talons,
Swoop upon the Enemy
Who carries off our young.

Lord, Most High,
Most Good,
Most Holy,
Carry us on eagle ‘s wings
To the safety of Your bosom,
Your Truth.

©2016 Joann Nelander

I Am

Your grandeur overwhelms me.
You lavish Your splendor,
Even on the ordinary,
Like grass upon the meadow,
And tears welling from the heart.

Where can I look that You are not?
Even the fallow field,
Awaits another day,
As a virgin in repose,
Seeing, in needful desire,
A time of promise and plenty.

You are written on our hearts.
We perceive You near,
Though hidden.
Terrible and tender,
You are unknowable,
Unless You give the means of knowing.

The universe though draped
In the garb of galactic might and majesty,
Does not know that it is.
Yet, the sentient child
Plays at Your side.

Men, too busy,
Brush by You on the street.
While the nursing babe
Finds You in steady supply.

Too grand!
Too glorious!
Blinded by the refulgence of Your sublimity,
I cover my eyes,
Yet peek with hope
To glimpse You passing.

In the mist of Your Mystery,
You are!
You are!
You are!

I know,
Because I am,
And You whisper and shout
Revealing,
I AM THAT I AM

Abundant Breast

I adore.
You, my God, present Yourself to me,
As Mother to a nursing child,
And I nurse at Your Abundant Breast.

Your milk is sweet as honey,
And all I want to do is nurse.
I have chosen the better part,
And You spend Yourself upon my want.

God, You, Who calls forth Life,
And then feeds and sustains the needy,
With endless Love,
Succor and suckle me.

© 2016 Joann Nelander

“For thus says the LORD:
I will spread prosperity over her like a river,
like an overflowing torrent,
the wealth of nations.
You shall nurse, carried in her arms,
cradled upon her knees;

As a mother comforts her child,
so I will comfort you;
in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort.”

Is: 66: 12 – 13

In Humble Expectation

My Jesus, I wait in humble expectation,
For the fulfillment of Your desires for me.

The Father wills,
That You be all in all in me

What will I look like,
When You fully reign in my heart?

How have I distorted Your Image?
How do I hold You at bay?

The most beautiful monstrance,
Without You at its center, is empty.

Shine out of me.
Be the heart of me.

Be Lord of this manor.
Be heart, hearth and home.

Draw the world to Your Table.
Feed the world with your Holy Bread.

Flesh and Blood, You,
Penetrate the Gift of Life.

With ever new hope in me,
You wait to fulfill all You Promise.

You are my Sweet Salvation
Given as unmerited and undeserved gift.

Believing and bowing low,
I am lifted!

Touching the hem of Your garment
My faith finds Your favor.

Holiness of the forgiven sinner,
Live the fullness of Your Life in me.

© 2016 Joann Nelander

Just as I Am / Through a Glass Darkly

 

Just as I am,
All that I am,
You behold me.

I see so little,
So little of me,
So little of You.

“Through a glass darkly”
Sufficiency suffices,
In Faith, believing.

Mingled here, Your Mercy,
Grandeur, clouded in Mystery,
I rest as a babe.

Just as I am,
A mystery unfolding,
Ever so small.

Cradled in universe expanding,
My stuff born in your stars,
Fit in Time in me.

Just as I am,
Spirit, soul, body,
Free to choose my destiny.

Mingle my “just as I am”
With You,
My Destiny.

Called into being,
Ever renewed,
Moments, all grace!

Made in Your Image,
Knowing my Maker,
I must but trust.

This is my prayer.
These are my moments of grace,
Though “through a glass darkly”.

© 2016 Joann Nelander

The Meeting Place

Here we are again,
You, Holy God,
Blessed Trinity,
And me,
Meeting in prayer.

I will to thank,
To praise,
To love,
And extol Your Name,
The One, the Only,
The True,
My God.

Desiring so to open
Wide Your Heart,
As a gate yielding
To thanksgiving,
And receiving me,
Alive with praise and worship
Into the throne room
Of Your Love.

Bathed in the Spirit,
Receiving,
Head to heart,
Heart to head,
Head to heart,
Ebb and flow,
Water of Life.

© 2016 Joann Nelander

At Your Feet

At your feet, my Jesus,
I rent my heart,
That the ashes of my life,
May spill upon Your Altar,
Here at the foot of Your Cross.

Send Your Hallowed Spirit,
To stir the dust that I am,
That carried aloft on Your Wind,
I may escape the hold of Earth and flesh,
And the Accuser.

Carry me,
On Your gentle breeze,
Above this world,
Beyond the Lie,
To a safe haven,
The heaven of Your Presence.

© 2016 Joann Nelander

Flash Mob – Ode to Joy – Beethoven Symphony No.9

By Your Presence

You, by Your Presence, O Lord,
Are Light to my darkness.
You are the kiss upon my brow,
The oil upon my head,
The arms of sweet embrace,
The banner over my heart.

You, All Love,
Bless this child of Your magnificent
And magnanimous Mercy.
Day by day.
I find You all about me.

Flowers and fields,
Spread before me
As a welcoming blanket.
Come rest awhile, You invite.
I come and I delight.

Becoming Flame

I offer You the straw of my life,
O Lord of my redemption.
Send Your angels, day by day,
To glean my field,
To fuel the fire of Your Love.

Did You not say,
“Learn from Me,
For I am meek,
And humble of heart?”
You do not need my riches.
You seek my poverty, my emptiness.

Your Fire penetrates my stubble.
I become like You,
All aglow As light and heat
Testify to Your Presence in the flame
That shoots to the heavens.

I am surrender and trust
In welcome transformation.
I am lost and yet eternal.
In You, straw by straw,
As kindling,
I am become the Flame.

A Prayer in Adoration

Here I am Lord,
Sitting, kneeling,
Prostrate in spirit
Before You, adoring.
Who You are in Your glory
Lies hidden under the appearance
Of this Holy Bread before me.

You have revealed to Your Church
The wonder, and magnificence
Of Your living Presence.
With Mother Church,
I extol Your beauty.
Truths come to mind
And I give assent.

I am married to You,
O Holy Bridegroom.
In the fullness of time,
I will embrace You
With a glorified vision and body,
But, for now, I reach with heart
And mind’s eye to catch a glimpse
Of this splendid Truth
Hidden as it is
‘Neath Bread and Wine
And broken Body on a Cross.

Favor me with an increase
Of love and desire,

Until my longing tears free
From all that holds me captive still.
I know my blindness,
And have seen my foolishness.
In my poverty and need,
I seek refuge here
Before Your eyes.

Your Truth,
Your splendid Truth, be mine!
These are such glorious Truths,
I can not comprehend them
In their reality and breath.
I can only glimpse them,
And cry out in hope and faith.

My adorable Lord,
Looking upon me now as always,
Gather to Yourself,
The groans and sighs of Spirit born,
Unto Your memories,
As so many Communions
And resurrections of spirit,
As chains of Love in Time,
But always,
Only One Adorable Lord.

©2010 Joann Nelander

A Place Apart

A desert You prepare for me.
In solitude You allure me.
An encounter awaits me,
Your heart waiting for mine.
A thousand betrayals,
Hasn’t dimmed Your vision
For Love’s elect.

©2012 Joann Nelander

Blossom in the Desert

Sad the plight of Man,
Mourning the lose of Paradise.
Captive to cowardice,
Hiding from his God.
Cast out, betraying,
And accusing one another,
Empty of grace, forlorn.

One garden of hope remains.
One paradise,
Ready for the Spring.
One immaculate heaven on earth.
O Virgin, say but the Word,
And your “Fiat”
Will blossom forth in Faith,
Rarity of your virginal ground.

Immaculate fecundity,
Queen Mother, Desert Willow,
New Eve, bearer of New Adam,
With new creation, rejoicing.
Voicing all thanksgiving,
A Eucharist for the sons and daughters of God.

© 2011 Joann Nelander

Stir into Flame

Fire once flame

Enkindled by the Spirit,

Smolder.

Embers still aglow,

Await a new Wind,

And a prayer,

Sent on the breath

Of the will,

Catalyst and fuel.

 

O Spirit blaze again

To the heavens,

Sending heat and light

To ignite those cold,

World-weary and, now, ready.

 

Then will the sparks fly

And the earth shake.

Lord Jesus, send forth Your Spirit,

We are athirst and longing.

 

©2012 Joann Nelander