Clay-heavy soil is dry and seamed with cracks, 
contracting as the drought extends its reach.
The heart can only think of what it lacks,
what’s fallen in each dark and barren breach.

But what is buried here can never grow
until the burning heavens open wide.
From east to west, there’s not a cloud to show,
and heaven looks upon us empty-eyed.

What if a storm from some far quadrant came
with hailstones like the judgments of the Lord?
What if the wind should howl a long-lost name
and strip the trees as terror’s torrents poured?

Our flimsy houses only need a spark
to blaze as earthly images of hell.
Let us be happy in the raging dark—
Who would not now bless any drop that fell?

So let the sky go dark, midafternoon,
and shadow all this barren bright terrain,
to stir the hope that always wakes too soon,
believing even darkness brings the rain.

Image copied from local news station WFAA’s Facebook page.

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive?
As many as seven times?” 
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. 
That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants. 
—Matthew 18:21-25

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Remember I am dust.
O God, do not forget.
You promised, when my life is crushed,
that you will raise me yet.
Then when I raise my fist
in anger to the sky,
have mercy, and remember this:
All flesh is born to die.

We blossom like the flow’r
and wither as the grass.
O God, be gentle in your pow’r
And hold us as we pass.
Look not on all my crimes,
but turn your eyes from them,
oh, seven times and seven times
and seven times again.

And still the seasons turn;
the clouds pass over us.
Oh, from your mercy let me learn
this kindness to our dust,
that as they strike my cheek
and th’old church clock tow’r chimes,
to be the mercy that I seek,
oh, seventy-seven times.

Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. This depiction by Domenico Fetti (c. 1620) shows the unforgiving servant choking the other debtor. – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150920

Step back, beloved, or I lose my sight.
My eyes can’t focus when you stand so near
but glaze and blur ‘til I see nothing clear
and grope as blindly for you as at night.

Do I not know the contours of your face?
Then how do they surprise me even now,
and what new lines are written on your brow?
I know my own is changing, too, apace.

And so I grope for you; I reach and bleed.
What’s love but being close enough to cut
my hand on the rough edge of heart and gut,
or look at you and only see my need?

I gaze, but only in a darkened mirror.
Then may the one who made the blind man see
work from this spit and dust his grace in me
that someday, oh, my vision may be clear.

Human eye with limbal ring, anterior view. The eye is the sensory organ of the visual system. The iris, pupil, and sclera are visible. Photo by Rapidreflex – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=135379096

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May the mother of our savior
wrap her starry cloak around you—
this mercy, oh, we pray for—
‘til Christ has come and found you.

May the hands that held his body
tend you now, your wounds and sickness,
‘til Christ—oh, praise and laud him!—
restores you. Lord, come quickly!

May the voice that magnified him
whisper to you of his mercy
‘til Christ, though shadows hide him,
speak clearly in your thirsting.

Now may she who stood there weeping
at the cross of Calvary’s sorrow
give you into his keeping,
for Christ holds your tomorrow.

And may she who saw him living
because death could not constrain him
pray Christ, good and forgiving,
bring you into his reign then.
Amen.

The Madonna del Rosario (c. 6th century or earlier), perhaps the oldest icon of Mary in Rome. Medieval tradition held that this icon was painted by Luke the Evangelist. Photo By Asia – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61627017

Amen, I say to you,
whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
—Matthew 18:15-20

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What I have bound and what set free,
that I shall make my earth to be.
Here in my hands you put the key—
O God, be merciful to me.

Then let my selfishness be bound,
sequestered from the world around,
my anger under lock and key—
O God, be merciful to me.

And bind my pride in iron chains
(oh, give me strength to bear those pains)
and let repentance turn the key—
O God, be merciful to me.

But let the humble spirit go
to bring me low and still more low
enough to pass without a key—
O God, be merciful to me.

And let my love be free to roam
and in the end to lead me home.
Let love itself be lock and key—
O God, be merciful to me.

Give me the wisdom here to see
what I have bound that should be free,
what I have loosed that bound should be.
Let mercy only turn the key—
O God, be merciful to me.

Gate of Locks, Lima, Peru, January 2025, Photo By Grandmaster Huon – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=157494076

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We wither as the grass
beneath your burning sun.
The blossom of our day must pass
when day itself is done

unless you make us green
beneath the burning light
no mortal eye has ever seen—
we cannot bear the sight.

We fade within the hour;
we vanish as the dew
and leave no trace of fruit or flower
unless your power renew.

For you, O God, are green.
Pour greenness on the shoots
that here against your mercy lean:
Fill us down to the roots!

And when, like us, the night
forever’s passed away,
oh, make us green to bear the light
of your eternal day!

O living light, be rain
as well as brilliant sun,
and bring us back to green again
when all our days are done!

Scivias, Cod. Sal. X,16, p. 4 By Hildegard of Bingen – http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/touch/salX16/#page/4, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81326012

For it is written:
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the learning of the learned I will set aside.
Where is the wise one?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the debater of this age?
Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?
—1 Corinthians 1:17-25

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You pick my wisdom all to pieces,
unravel every thread I’d wound
and woven in a silken thesis—
oh, soft the shroud that had me bound!
This cloak was fraying at the creases;
now it is tatters on the ground.

So now I stand here naked, threadbare
as Adam shameless under sky
or as the woman that he met there
in Eden where we learned to lie.
And now you hold me in a dead stare:
I am uncovered to your eye.

And all my life unwinding spoolish
unravels everything I’ve known.
My stubborn stitches, hooped and mulish,
have ruined all that I had sewn.
Where I was wise, you’ve made me foolish:
My wisdom now is you alone.

Then take the distaff up, O Weaver,
the earth your spindle since the drop,
and twist new hope, O Undeceiver,
while here you spin me like a top,
to clothe me now as your believer.
My Tailor, make of me your fop.

Eve spinning, the spindle in her right hand: Hunterian Psalter, ca 1170 (Glasgow University Library) By Anonymous – http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/psalter/psalterindex.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2549773

When the people in the synagogue heard this,
they were all filled with fury.
They rose up, drove him out of the town,
and led him to the brow of the hill
on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.
But he passed through the midst of them and went away.
—Luke 4:16-30

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We bring you to the crowning of the hill,
here on the heights where prophets come to see
and men look down upon their enemy,
and mean to kill.

A place like this showed Moses the promised land,
showed Abraham a ram caught in the thorns
and bound there by the curve of its own horns,
and so we stand.

But, quiet as the ending of the dawn,
you slip our grasp.  We cannot see you pass.
We stand here with the wind, the sky, the grass,
but you are gone.

Come back, O Lord, if such a thing can be,
if mercy could induce us to repent,
if judgment could, as mercy does, relent,
and let us see.

Aerial view of mesas in Monument Valley, on the Colorado Plateau By J Brew – originally posted to Flickr as Over Monument Valley, Navajo Nation, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9709328

I say to myself, I will not mention him,
I will speak in his name no more.
But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart,
imprisoned in my bones;
I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.
–Jeremiah 20:7-9

Then Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me. 
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
—Matthew 16:21-27

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But we believed in you, that you would save
the innocent and holy from the grave,
that you would heal the worthy, lift the poor,
and lead us on through heaven’s open door.
Instead you turn to face Jerusalem
and turn your sheep—where are you leading them?

A shepherd walking straight to the wolf’s jaws,
you let your lambs like gems adorn his claws.
Where is the sling to drive the wolf away?
Where are the rod and staff to shield his prey?
A cord to scourge the shepherd who has failed,
the crossbars where you let yourself be nailed.

I will not sing of you; I shut my mouth
‘til my bones burn like wildfire in a drouth
and I cannot endure my silence, Lord—
and yet your silence pierces like a sword.
With all the innocent you, too, are slain,
but why could mercy not have spared them pain?

I hold it in until I gasp for breath:
You did not come to save us from our death
but to transform it.  Though we try to flee,
the only world we have is Calvary.
The only earth spins on through gain and loss.
You came to share our pain and bear our cross.

Take up—but it already fills my hands—
and follow where the shepherd’s each step lands.
Accept the cross I fight against and find
a fountain for my burning heart and mind
wells up from barren wood and starts to pour.
Somehow the grave becomes the open door.

Glödbädd By Tobias Barkskog, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52965762

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I’m driving on a tire with a nail
between the treads and piercing through the belt.
It’s only just beginning now to fail,
the difference in its pressure barely felt.
The leak is slow and I can go for miles
before collapse’s catastrophic end,
and yet I’m low and sinking all the while,
the road a blind before me as it wends.
And still the journey’s nowhere near complete,
so I drive on, no word upon my lip,
no respite from the summer’s glare and heat
reflecting from the highway’s concrete strip.
How far there is to go, I could not say.
I grip the wheel, and in my heart I pray.

Still Life With Stone and Car, Sculpture by Jimmie Durham at Walsh Bay, Sydney, Photo By Whiteghost.ink – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48526040