For from Zion shall go forth instruction,
Isaiah 2:1-5
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and impose terms on many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
One nation shall not raise the sword against another,
nor shall they train for war again.
Give us the strength to bend our swords,
to set the iron in the forge
and let it soften, melting down
to serve at last the barren ground.
The fields we trampled into mud
mixed with the spilling rain of blood,
oh, let us turn and plow instead,
that broken men may break the bread.
All summer, let the weeping fall
to nurture green shoots growing tall
and heal what we had once despoiled,
so to renew the weary soil.
And when at last the harvest comes
let trumpets sound—but not the drums,
and silent stay the rusted guns—
so may on earth thy will be done.
Our bows and arrows, spears and knives
become the sickles and the scythes
that gather, as the fields come ripe,
the firstfruits of the seed that died.
And when at last we see your light,
oh, may you meet us doing right,
not wasting what was sacrificed
but tending to your fields, O Christ.
Study of a man pushing a plow By Félicien Rops – This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See the Image and Data Resources Open Access Policy, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60848007
Kate Bluett 