Malcolm Guite

Not one that’s gently hinged or deftly hung,

Not like the ones you planed at Joseph’s place,

Not like the well-oiled openings that swung

So easily for Pilate’s practiced pace,

Not like the ones that closed in Mary’s face

From house to house in brimming Bethlehem,

Not like the one that no man may assail,

The dreadful curtain, the forbidding veil

That waits your breaking in Jerusalem.

 

Not one you made but one you have become:

Load-bearing, balancing, a weighted beam

To bridge the gap, to bring us within reach

Of your high pasture. Calling us by name,

You lay your body down across the breach,

Yourself the door that opens into home.

 


Malcolm GuiteMalcolm Guite is the Chaplain of Girton College, Cambridge. He teaches for the Divinity Faculty and the Cambridge Theological Federation, and lectures widely in England and North America on theology and literature. He is the author of What do Christians Believe?Faith Hope and PoetrySounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian YearThe Singing Bowl: Collected Poems; and The Word in the Wilderness. He works as poet and librettist for composer Kevin Flanagan and his Riprap Jazz Quartet, and has also collaborated with American composer J.A.C. Redford. He worked with Canadian singer-songwriter Steve Bell on his 2012 CD Keening For The Dawn and his 2014 Album Pilgrimage.

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This material is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0  License.

Recommended Citation: Guite, Malcolm. (2015) “I Am the Door of the Sheepfold,” The Yale ISM Review: Vol. 1: No. 2, Article 8. Available at: https://ismreview.yale.edu

View article as a PDF: I Am the Door of the Sheepfold

Volume 1.2 Spring 2015

Cover Yale ISM Review Volume 1.2 Spring 2015

In This Issue

On the Cover

Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!

Jews, Christians, and the Passion of Jesus

A Study Guide to Performing the Passion

Who Do You Say That I Am? Jesus in Gethsemane

Jesus Weeps

I Am the Door of the Sheepfold

Kongo Triple Crucifix

Rereading the Stations of the Cross through Art

Resurrection