Come into the Light

Tony Scully's poems in Come into the Light offer an outspoken conversation with the Gospels, arguably the most transformative teaching in our known history. The wisdom of the great masters among us, Jesus, the Buddha, and Mohammed, speak of universal compassion, love, and forgiveness. Jesus preaches that one will find God, not in invoking what amounts to an anthropomorphic idol, but in searching one's own heart, as in his fundamental teaching, "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21). Tony Scully's poems address Jesus, the central figure of the Gospels, with questioning, irreverence, and occasional confrontation. In his view, many of the stories, even that of the resurrection itself, hinge on miracles, reflecting earlier religions that expected gods to cure illnesses, raise the dead, and even to walk on water, rather than on the powers of compassion, love, and forgiveness that characterize Jesus. In the author's view, the heart of Jesus is proof enough of his transcendence.