As regular readers will notice, I have been posting much more poetry as of late. This is mostly to stretch my poetry muscles, but I’ve also noticed it helps me to sort out my thoughts. Especially once I attached the exercise to my time in the scriptures. The process of turning a passage of scripture into a poem is an enriching exercise in meditation for me.
This year my home church is doing daily readings for Advent. I got pretty excited at the idea of a corporate reading exercise. This excitement dovetailed in my mind with my current exercises in scripture poetry. I thought I would try to turn our daily Advent readings into sonnets.
The first reading is Romans 13:11-14
Wake up! The time has come. The night is past
and dawn has broken with the light of Christ.
The Son of God and our salvation’s sun,
This wholly Holy One has pierced the dark-
ness cast over the world because of sin.
He found us drunk with darkness and enjoy-
ing every toxic drop that we imbibed
then blazed his brilliant light across our night
through lowly manger unto cruel cross
to banish sins’ addictive hold on us.
So now, no longer stumbling and blind,
we fix our eyes on Christ and turn from sin.
Because Christ’s advent saved us from the night,
how can we choose to live without His light?
R. C. Svendsen 
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