Another Poem

If you have never visited Tijuana from the Mexican side you may miss the deeper meaning of this one.  We lived in Guadalajara for 12 years and when we visited this city (several occasions) we always sensed something very different in the heart and soul of the people.  This something we did not find in Guadalajara and I always struggled to put my finger on it, until the morning I stepped out onto the balcony of the hotel, where we were doing the Marriage Encounter event, and could look across Tijuana, across the border to the smoky hills east of San Diego. There is a haunting longing and a sense of unfulfilled plans and dreams in this place that cries out for fullness, completeness, and joy that can only be found in Creator...Father...loving Savior.

Tijuana Morning

Calm seems the morning hour

Mist rising over smoky hills.

A slowly awakening chorus

Of sights and sounds takes shape.

A haunting sense of distance

Oh so near to the very fiber of life.

Smoky reflections dance in the light,

A sense of long time sleepiness.

Tones and hues of life over playing,

Moving, always looking…longing.

Something better, something beyond,

Something lost…

Stephen F. Scarrow

8 November 2003

On the occasion of the 1^st Marriage Encounter in Tijuana

He built a table...someone was building a cross.

This coming Sunday is the second in the advent season and it is also The Lord's Table at Friendship Alliance Church.  As we prepare ourselves I offer a poem that came to me a few years back as I worshiped Jesus at the alter and Table in our sanctuary.

He built a table

With tears in his eyes

Each drop a memory

Strong caring hands had taught him how

Warm loving eyes had cheered him on

On the table he engraved his signature

The last of all

The servant of all

And somewhere, someone was building a cross.

He looked at the table

With tears in his eyes

Joy mingled with sorrow

An old friend bearing the tools of active humility

Friends obliviously feasting while feet he cleansed 

At the table he lived out the inscription

The last of all

The servant of all

And somewhere, someone prepared the cross.

I gaze upon a table

With tears in my eyes

Sorrow and joy intertwined

An old friend bearing His Body, His Blood

Constant His presence, permanent His care

At the table I become His endorsement

The last of all

The servant of all

Yoked through his passion proffered on His cross.

Steve Scarrow

April 27, 2006