MARY’S ANNOINTING

When the alabaster flask

broke in my hand

my heart broke for you,

and pouring the ointment  over  your head

was the least I could do.

Too costly they shout,

                So little I think,

for soon you’ll be broken too.

If I were a prophet

I’d anoint you king or high priest.

A waste! They enjoin

From their comfortable seats;

Worth it I think as I sit at your feet.

I see you my Master –

You call me your friend.

How can giving  to my Savior be

extravagant when

His own costly sacrifice

ensures mercy without end?

©Janet McDonald

Extravagance

Must be a Woe

Must be a Woe —
A loss or so —
To bend the eye
Best Beauty's way —

But — once aslant
It notes Delight
As difficult
As Stalactite

A Common Bliss
Were had for less —
The price — is
Even as the Grace —

Our lord — thought no
Extravagance
To pay — a Cross —

Emily Dickinson

Extravagance can be defined in various ways. It is a condition of excessiveness, lavishness. It is generally considered negative, the opposite of prudence:

1.  A condition of going or being beyond what is needed, desired, or  appropriate
2.  Excessive or imprudent expenditure
3. Something costly and unnecessary

Extravagance - a word for this generation. Distracted by the famously extravagant, we bestow worth to egocentric lives by our attention. Our children know all their names.

Moral apathy: the extravagance of self-indulgence. People roaming about, spending rudeness, demanding attention. Road bullies, verbal polluters, noisy narcissists. No material abundance required.

'But Mary...her extravagance was spent on Someone else.  Would you "waste" a year's income worth of anything on anyone?

© Janet McDonald