The world is full of unsuspected mercies: an orange’s skin peels off in one long piece and fills the room with scent like sunlight bursting between the blinds when darkness wouldn’t cease; a voice that mourns for war and hopes for peace sings promise as a drink in desert thirsting;
a chord that gathered tension is releasing, is letting go a note I held too long; the words don’t come, and then they come so easy, and everything goes right that had been wrong; where there was silence now there is a song that fills the room, and everybody sings it;
a table where we savor the belonging— PB&Js or flights of elegance— when coffee’s brewing everyone comes thronging, with madeleines so good that Proust makes sense, and prayers arise that break down every fence, and out past those there is a new day dawning;
the morning comes, but comes upon you gently (you thought new heavens and a brand-new earth would need a cataclysm, but they’re sent here each time a seed awakens in the dirt) and mercy is made new, and all our thirst is satisfied by sips from heaven’s wellspring.
Long-suffering Odysseus beheld Penelope across long years and tortuous, so that he could not see the graying hair, the drooping breast, the lines that etched her face— a young man’s eyes on a girl’s they rest— but not so they embraced. Then wrinkled skin whose spotted hands caressed his many scars enfold him across all lands, ‘til no more nears and fars and years and wars kept them apart, and then he saw her clear. The old man laid against her heart, she saw him now and here.
I walked into my parents’ church and did not recognize the place that formed me from my birth, and strangers to my eyes the women there who looked and rose and smiled and called me “dear” until my mother drew me close and whispered in my ear. Then lines and images converged, these women and these men, and in this renovated church I was a child again.
The lines run on, though years still rise that heart will not release. The view is fragmented ‘til eyes and memories make peace. I still see children in the men who cannot wait to roam, but Laertes is young again to see his son come home.
I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand; I formed you, and set you as a covenant of the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness. —Isaiah 42:6-7
Your justice comes in silence, not shouting in the street, not on the wings of violence but muddied, bloodstained feet;
for justice is your servant, your own beloved son, the glorious and fervent, yet poor and lowly one.
You formed him for your kingdom, for all its victories: to gather lambs and lead them— and he shall be our peace.
And this shall be his token for blinded hearts to see: the reed we bruised unbroken, the prisoners set free.
So all our dreams of conquest, my visions of control, must fall here at the outset so he may make us whole.
He will not force allegiance, nor argue to convince. O God, your love is pleading: I bow before your prince.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. —1 John 4:7-10
Beloved: So you call me as what you made me of, the origin of all things, and call me so to love.
Yet this poor dust beneath me is all I feel myself— even so, it’s dross of Eden, inestimable wealth:
You came as dust and ashes, and dust became pure gold. I tremble at your passage, but shine within your hold,
for you will purify me— yet love me all impure. Your flames, Lord, terrify me: O, help me to endure!
Let me remain within you, within the fire you are, and learn to love as you do, mere dust become a star.
My brother, quickly now, give me your spear, for mine is lost and I have failed my throw— not wholly, though. I struck his shield there, near where Death is figured, dragging men below. Give me a spear, and I’ll fend off this woe and pierce the glorious shield through even Death— Why should I tremble as if struck myself?
But keep your eyes upon him—steady now. Achilles takes his aim; the spear he wields as sturdy as Zeus-Father’s oak-tree bough, him by whose will we conquer or we yield. Take cover now beneath your well-wrought shield! God smiles on us: Achilles’ spear flew wide, and now beneath his figured shield he hides.
That image burns me, as a star on earth, a light that pierces when I close my eyes: The end of all things, sorrow same as mirth, an omen like the vulture as it flies, but for Achilles’ fall, or my own rise? Give me a spear, Deïphobus, now you must! Or by Death’s hand we shall be dragged in dust.
Where are you, brother? Coward, have you flown? Yet all this time how strange you’ve made no noise, and in the dirt no footprints but my own. How long have I heard only my own voice? How many years the Argives will rejoice, and in Achilles’ hand again the spear that fell behind me. Oh, some god is near!
Athena, by my guess. The aegis shakes, and on that shield divine Medusa’s head has stopped my blood. My heart no longer quakes. I will call no man happy ‘til he’s dead and walks no more between content and dread on either hand, and falls as gods decree. I fall today. Let there still honor be.
Hear me, you gods swift-footed and fleet-winged that baffle eyes of men and daze their sense. I stand a king’s son who would yet be kinged but for your will. Grant me this recompense: Let it be known that I in Troy’s defense was ever first in battle and in fame. Let men in future songs still speak my name.
But for myself, I go down to the shades. I will not fight your word. All men must die until of something else than earth we’re made. As it is now, our spirits ever fly; this I accept. But know I, Hector, I have heard you promise lies. If god deceives, he should watch out, for thieves are robbed by thieves.
Know there will come a day when Zeus shall fall, and greater than Achilles’ fall is great his plummet from the heights shall shake us all. Not even gods escape the hand of fate. From Hades, then, that time I shall await when something rises greater than your might. But now I take my sword in hand and fight.
Let the old year be mown with its harvest half-grown: Not all seed comes to fruit, nor all summers take root. The sun and the rain nurture sorrow and pain with the joys of the field. There is good in the yield, nipped by wind and by frost, yes, but all is not lost. Though I lose by my toil, yet it sleeps in the soil, and the sower will come to awaken what’s numb, what lies dormant in store— and to plant even more. There are seeds in the ground. Harvests yet will abound. O you grower of all, what seeds you let fall are best known to you: Let me give them their due and tear out the weeds, make room for your seeds. My wastes and my fallows, turn all to your hallows. Through all the new years let me water with tears the works of your hand, what good should now stand, that my hand has hurt. Send grace on this dirt. And let me grow well and new mercies tell from what you began if I of love can, if I of love can, if I of love can.
The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” —Luke 2:22-35
The light that breaks upon us shall be broken itself, its shards in darkness be consumed. The Word that spoke us shall be counter-spoken, in hush entombed.
And you, untouched by sin, should be untroubled: You shall be punished, pierced through by a sword. A mother’s heart has all its sorrows doubled: His you will hoard.
But, Lord, my eyes have looked upon salvation, nor have you hidden it from nation’s sight, and I can go with no more hesitation into the night,
for there the shards of glory shall be hidden, and in that silence still the Word awaits as I have waited, as I go there: bidden, and none too late.
This child and I shall go, as we are mortal. Our night will fall, our hungry grave will yawn, and he shall make it speak, make night a portal that leads to dawn!
He is the Word, the same that you’re fulfilling in filling my arms with him. My long nights cease. Dismiss me now, as I have long been willing. I go in peace.
When the magi had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. —Matthew 2:13-15
Once again the night is parted like the waters of the sea when the Israelites departed in the pasch that set them free.
In the night a fiery pillar shows a way where there was none to escape the would-be killer of the sole-begotten Son:
“Rise and take them, child and mother, where the Nile divides the sands. Where a Joseph saved his brothers, save your loves from tyrant hands.”
Yet did others drown in sorrow like a sea at Bethlehem, and they did not see the morrow— darker waves closed over them.
Speak, O Lord: Have you forgotten all the children swept away and the wails of those who lost them in the darkest of these days?
Could your mighty arm not save them? Yes, and greater might than this: Christ, the firstborn of creation, will go down to the abyss.
He will find their graves and fill then with himself, their life to be. He will lead these long-lost children to their freedom through the sea.
He will send the tyrant tumbling and the dreamer will prove right. Lo, another Pasch is coming that will end at last this night.
Kate Bluett 