Mary at the Cross

By Loretta Miles Tollefson

Poetry that will change the way you think about the people in the New Testament.

Mary At The Cross celebrates events in the New Testament by exploring them through the eyes of people who were there. In these thirty quietly lyrical yet accessible poems, Loretta Miles Tollefson combines her award-winning poetic skills and knowledge of the Bible to look at the ancient stories and the people who lived them in a new way .

Read these poems and experience a fresh approach to and appreciation of the New Testament stories. Each poem focuses on a different event. Reading them, you'll ponder the meaning of Christ's birth with the announcing angel, reflect on Matthew's emotions when he's called to be a disciple, stand with Mary at the cross, experience the empty tomb with Mary Magdalene, and watch with Peter's wife as he wrestles with his doubts and fears.

Mary At The Cross is the companion volume to And Then Moses Was There.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LLT Press
• Release date: Oct 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536590104

Loretta Miles Tollefson

Loretta Miles Tollefson has been publishing fiction and poetry since 1975. (She’s not old--she started young!) Growing up in foothills of the Olympic Mountains in the log cabin her grandfather built and her father was born in led naturally to an interest in history and historical fiction. When she retired to the mountains of northern New Mexico, writing historical fiction set there was a logical result. The Moreno Valley Sketches books are the first in many planned books set there. Before turning to historical fiction full time, Loretta wrote Crown of Laurel, a novel set in Seattle in the recession of the early 1980's. Loretta holds a B.S. in Bible Education from Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon. This background informs her poetry collections Mary at the Cross: Voices from the New Testament and And Then Moses Was There: Voices from the Old Testament. In the mid-1980's, Loretta and her husband suffered the loss of their first child in the fifth month of pregnancy. Her poetry collection But Still My Child came out of that period and is designed to help others deal with the pain of miscarriage. Loretta holds M.A.'s in Communication and in English Literature from the University of New Mexico. Most days, you'll find her researching New Mexico history in the 1800's and writing furiously. She publishes short historical fiction every week at LorettaMilesTollefson.Wordpress.com.

Book preview

PREFACE

No matter whether you believe the events in the Bible really happened or are just stories, the people in those stories have much to teach us. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the Bible stories aren’t relevant to us today, either because we believe that the events they tell about didn’t really happen or because they seem to tell us about people who had a special in with the Divine.

But we’ve all read at least one great novel or short story that helped us understand ourselves by pointing out the similarities between human beings that transcend culture and time. In the same way, the Bible stories can increase our understanding of ourselves and others. After reading these stories we can comprehend a little more clearly how even the wisest of men can justify actions of great folly. We can see why the seemingly simplest of girls can be called to enormous tasks, or what would compel a daughter-in-law to sacrifice everything to follow an old and poor woman into a land full of strangers.

And we can also see that these are men and women with human failings and strengths. They are not superhuman and thus able to experience God in a way we cannot. Nor are they less than human and in need of more-than-ordinary divine intervention. They are like us, and their link with the Divine is the same link we also can have. If they could, we can.

In the poems in this collection and in And Then Moses Was There I seek to ask what might it have been like to be a particular individual in a specific Bible story. How might it have felt to live those circumstances? Why might that person have reacted in that way? There are no definitive answers to these questions. Like all great literature, the stories give us clues, but not answers. Those clues provide us with a springboard for meditating on the human emotions and reactions that bridge centuries and particular habits of life, as well as on Divine grace and love, which are not bound by space and time.

The poems in this book are the result of my own meditation and research. I hope they will provide a point of departure for you, the reader, as you also think on these things.

Loretta Miles Tollefson, March 2014

JOHN THE BAPTIST’S FATHER

But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John . . . And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years. And the angel answering said unto