Six days you labored o'er the earth,
filled it with every wondrous beast.
For every hunger, every thirst,
you made your gifts an endless feast.
Each work of land or sky or flood
you saw and loved and called it good.
Did you withhold your sight divine,
or did we lose it at the Fall?
Or are we, willful, deaf and blind
to your own image and your call?
We've heard, but have not understood;
we've seen, but have not called it good.
As if a day's creation failed,
so we reject what you have made:
your Spirit into flesh exhaled,
which we dismiss as merely clay.
The ancient lie too long has stood
that whispers, "No, it is not good."
Renew your labor in us, Lord,
that we may love what you have blest.
Bring us into your own accord
before the coming day of rest.
Work still within us, dust and mud,
that we may see and call it good.
This folio from Walters manuscript W.106 is the first image in a series of Bible pictures. The artist William de Brailes tells the Genesis story, condensing two days of Creation into one image. On the first day of Creation, God created heaven and earth, and the earth was without form and void. The Spirit of God moved across the face of the waters, and we see God himself gesturing to the Spirit with his right hand. God raises his left hand to the waters above him, which he separated from the firmament, beneath his feet, on the second day. By William de Brailes – Walters Art Museum: Home page Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84171636
Kate Bluett 