God, Life, and Beauty | Jeremy Vogan
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My name is Jeremy Vogan. I love to write and enjoy exploring the intellectual and emotional implications of being a follower of Jesus in a world that is full of veiled beauty and meaning. Explore essays, poetry, meditations, and book reviews by me.
God, Life, and Beauty | Jeremy Vogan
4M ago
You are not my son;
I have not known her;
Our love was chaste, till
All this came down.
.
My heart is broken,
Our dreams are over.
For surely nothing
Can make this pure.
.
For all my grief, though,
I cannot blame her,
As something trusting
Is in her eyes.
.
A quiet parting
For godly justice
Is all my heart knows
To hope to do.
.
A dreadful vision,
A mighty message—
This is God’s doing?
You are His Son?
.
I will obey Him
And be her husband,
Stand as Your father
In holy fear.
.
“Hear, O Israel
Your God is one God”;
But in this marriage
There shall be t ..read more
God, Life, and Beauty | Jeremy Vogan
1y ago
Hebrews 11:10 “For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”
There is a place, Lord
Far from the blood-soaked ziggurats in the land You called our father from
Far from the spreading trees and high places of Israel’s idolatrous youth
Far from the pagan temples of the nations You exiled them to
There was a hint of it long ago, when Melchizedek blessed Abraham, and brought out bread and wine
When God stayed the hand of His obedient servant, and provided a sacrifice for the offering, that Isaac the child of promise might live
When the ..read more
God, Life, and Beauty | Jeremy Vogan
1y ago
I hate the cold.
Ok, that is probably too strong. So maybe I just hate how I feel when it’s cold.
But the older I get, the more I feel it. All the way into my bones. It is a slowness, a constricting, a paralyzing, unfriendly bitterness that makes me want to go into hibernation somewhere and not come out till about May.
And at the same time, I am 44 years old, and I know it is a part of the rhythm of life. The picture shown above is one of my very favorites from a few years ago. I stopped my truck alongside the road and took it looking off the Barren Ridge in Fishersville, one morning when the ..read more
God, Life, and Beauty | Jeremy Vogan
1y ago
A hot dog used to cost a nickel here
Which she would grab from in her purse, and peer
Up at me smiling as she pinched them close:
“It’s always more expensive on the coast!”
She loved to feel the salt wind on her face
And lean beyond the wooden rail’s embrace
To taste the foam that whirled along the shore
With hints of Venice, and to hear the door
Creak softly open that might let her view
The spires of old St. Petersburg, or through
Its narrow crevice catch a fleeting glimpse
Of Bushmen practicing their crouching limps,
Or Byzantines with whirling dervish lined.
She’d only ever seen them in ..read more
God, Life, and Beauty | Jeremy Vogan
1y ago
from Psalm 90
Lord, we have made our home in You
as long as time can tell
before You raised the lofty view
when mountains’ shadows fell
before You shaped the quiet earth
that void and formless lay
and brought Creation into birth
when darkness turned to day
from age to age You are Most High
and call us ever home
“Return,” Your Spirit softly cries
as dust to dust we come
an aeon passes in Your sight
as though a day gone by
the years like yesterday take flight
and leave us as they fly
like troubled dreams You sweep away
the bearers of Your Name
who felt the living warmth of day
before the evenin ..read more
God, Life, and Beauty | Jeremy Vogan
1y ago
Soft
That was how
You lived, and how
You came to die, not even knowing:
How hard I struggled to say “The needle, then”
How hard I cried (so unmanly? didn’t care) to let you go
How hard to stroke your graying head, for the last time
How hard the surging clouds strewed overhead, as if the skies, shattered, wept with me
How hard to see the sudden question in your eyes;
And harder still your calm acceptance, trusting me
Trusting – as you always have – to the very end
Softly knowi ..read more