On those who can't complete the race, have mercy, Lamb of God. For those who cannot keep the faith lift up your staff and rod. On all those lost along the way, who wait to see the break of day, or who stand here in need of grace, have mercy, Lamb of God.
On those who fled in cloud and dark, have mercy, shepherd Christ. Whom fear has driven far apart, let them be reconciled. Seek them beneath the moon and stars and bring them to the burning spark that shines forever from your heart of mercy, shepherd Christ.
On those who can no more withstand, O Lamb of God, grant peace. Whose bodies sink on Jordan's strand— Oh, let their striving cease!— or trembling now before you stand and know their time is close at hand, who long to see the promised land, O Lamb of God, grant peace.
I shared a version of this in my last post, and realized shortly after hitting “publish” that it needed revision. Luckily, a reader over on Substack (you should check out her work there) commented, showing me the way forward:
When I have come to you in wild-eyed wonder to make a holocaust of my own flesh (I tried to bear a yoke that I broke under, and then I hoped to offer you my death), I've turned away from joy, embracing hunger: You come to me, O Christ, and give me bread.
And then I come before you weak and shoddy, unfit, it seems, to kneel there and adore the sacrificial Lamb, unstained, unspotted. A spotted kid who can be nothing more, I hate myself and I despise this body: You come to me, O Christ, and offer yours.
And what is this you lay before me gently? The goodness of the world that you have made, the dust of Eden still with Spirit's breath in't, the form and food you first to Adam gave: Gifts from your hand, now in your hands a blessing, fruit of the earth, flesh of our flesh you take.
So you become their sprouting, greening, dying, as you become my weakness and my shame. You bear the grape, and bear me up, entwining all that you are with this poor mortal frame. You graft me in, a branch upon the vine here, and at your table I am unashamed.
The body and blood of Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread. By R. and K. Wood – The Catholic Picture Dictionary, 1948, Garden City Books, by Harold A. Pfeiffer, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=134736113
For today’s feast of Corpus Christi, I started with an idea I liked, and thought that approximating the meter of the sequence, Lauda, Sion, would be appropriate. (“Approximating, because I dropped a syllable from most lines. I’ve been doing a lot with unstressed line endings lately, and those require a two-syllable rhyme, and I wanted a break from that.) That resulted in the following:
See the table Christ has spread: Soul and body, come, be fed. How our shepherd cares for us! Jesus, risen from the dead, hidden in the wine and bread, feeds our spirits and our dust.
He who came to share our pain, cut down as the stalks of grain, torn as vintage from the vine, comes our living to sustain, comes to be with us again, gives himself in bread and wine.
Still he tends us, grain and fruit, growing sapling, climbing shoot, soil and water, sun and air. Creeping tendril, searching root, speak of heaven, seeming mute: Mercy for us everywhere.
Who gives life to fallen seeds, who the world's great hunger feeds, plate and chalice overflow: He who is and e'er shall be all creation shall redeem, highest heaven bending low.
And that’s… okay? I think it’s competent, for a congregational hymn. A bit stuffy, but sometimes a doctrinal focus does that to poetry. I wasn’t satisfied with it: It’s correct, but it doesn’t do anything for me. So I tried again, with more of focus on wonder than doctrine:
Not only bread and wine, but green and growing; not only in the vintage, but the vine, is Christ the root of hope in seed and sowing. He touches every shoot with life divine.
Not just the harvest, but the germination; not humankind alone, but humus, too: There Christ the seed, redeeming all creation, is sprouting now and making all things new.
So grape and grain are good ere they are gathered or we have turned them into wine and bread. Now Christ the vine has shared them with his branches: We taste and see his life beyond our death.
He breaks the bread that he has made his body; he pours the cup he poured himself into. Come, take the meal and mercy that he offers, for Christ our life has come to dwell with you.
I thought I was done, until I read it again this morning before typing it out. I like it better than the previous attempt: There’s wonder, and the syllables seem to overflow in a way that matches the grace I’m trying to talk about. It’s not so stiff and formal–there’s the human feeling along with the doctrinal correctness, so see, it’s better! But when I read it again, it felt like it lacked a personal encounter with the subject. It really all comes down to description. Okay. So I grabbed my pen, turned to a fresh page, and started over:
When I have come to you in wild-eyed wonder to make a holocaust of my own flesh (I've tried to bear a yoke that I broke under, and then I hoped to offer you my death), I've turned away from joy, embracing hunger: You come to me, O Christ, and give me bread.
And then I come before you weak and shoddy, unfit, it seems, to kneel there and adore the sacrificial Lamb, unstained, unspotted. A spotted kid who can be nothing more, I hate myself and I despise this body: You come to me, O Christ, and offer yours.
And how can I receive what you would give me? How can I ever make your goodness mine unless you heal me, Lord, not just forgive me? But only say the word, O Word divine, and I can take the gift, can take the living: your blood and body hid as bread and wine.
This is personal. Honestly, it’s probably too personal, and may not make any sense, unless you also have a history of scrupulosity and disordered eating (even a full-blown eating disorder). So for offering the world a hymn for the feast of Corpus Christi, this ain’t it. But in the end, it says more of what I really want to say. I’m finding this is happening more and more: It’s taking me more drafts–wildly divergent drafts, in some cases–to get at what I really mean. And what I really mean isn’t necessarily useful for congregational song, which is where this whole journey started. I don’t know what any of that means for what I’m doing, and what I hope to do, but it’s where I am right now.
The body and blood of Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread. By R. and K. Wood – The Catholic Picture Dictionary, 1948, Garden City Books, by Harold A. Pfeiffer, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=134736113
Also while I was out of town, The Porter’s Gate released the first single from their upcoming album, Bread Songs. This one is called “Daily Bread,” written by Lowana Wallace, Kai Welch, and yours truly. This was one of the most exciting songwriting experiences I have ever had. Lowana and I had talked over this idea one night at the songwriting retreat for this project. The next day we managed to snag an hour to ourselves—but we were both so sick of sitting that we went for a walk. For thirty minutes we circled the block on a chilly day in DC, stopping at the corners for me to scribble down lines before I forgot. Lowana was singing a tune, and by the time we came inside we had two verses. Then we found Kai at a keyboard, and he and Lowana worked out the accompaniment while I wrote the third verse. That night Lowana and Kai performed it after dinner, and it went over really well. Two days and some lyrical tweaks later, and the song was recorded in studio. And now it’s out!
A well so deep I could not see the sky from where I sat enveloped in the dark, yet it was there, the sun still riding high, and you were there, remembering the stars.
As if someone had opened up the roof and lowered down a paralytic God to wait with me—what else was there to do?— 'til I could rise, take up my mat, and walk.
Helpless as I, you made no darkness bright. There was no comfort in you, no defense. You worked no miracles there in the night, and when I prayed, you echoed my Amens.
And so we sat there in the oubliette, a broken woman and her broken God, a speck of dust and old, stale crust of bread, until the darkness passed and morning dawned.
And when I rose and saw again the skies, you became whole that sunlit grace to see, who sank to be with me that I might rise, that where you are, I, too, shall someday be.
From nothing you made all that is, and all that is will come to dust. Through every change, we know still this: You keep and care for each of us.
In you we live and move and are, O God, creator of the world. Your wisdom shines in every star, your life in each new leaf unfurled.
Then give us minds to know your works and give us hearts to seek your ways between the daystar and the dirt where we live out our given days.
So may we sing your praise as one: Your works of love rejoice in you, and when creation's days are done, O God, create all things anew. Amen.
I entered this text in a hymn contest on the theme “God the Creator,” seeking hymns for a proposed new ecumenical feast (though not in the Catholic Church, as far as I know): “The primary focus of the feast is on God’s creative action which then calls forth the human response of thankful praise for God’s creating and sustaining action; a commitment to responsible stewardship; lament and repentance for destruction caused by human greed and apathy; and hope for a restored and renewed creation.”
I’ve done plenty before in the “lament and repentance” line, as well as the “responsible stewardship” line. What appealed to me here was the option of “thankful praise” and “hope.” So I focused on that, while also hewing to the contest’s guidelines: “The text should be written in an accessible poetic style that lends itself to singing. It should be contemporary and inclusive and avoid the use of binary language, especially with respect to gender. The text should be appropriate for ecumenical settings, with the possibility of at least one stanza that would be appropriate for an interfaith context. The total length of the text should not exceed four stanzas.”
Four stanzas can give you a lot of leeway on total length, but a simple, four-line tune seemed appropriate for what I had in mind. (I eventually chose the tune OLD 100TH, perhaps best known as “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.”) That means sixteen lines total, instead of my usual twenty-four. I decided I liked the challenge of trying to say something true, but also heartfelt and (I hope) beautiful in a tighter format than usual. I liked the result, but there were over a hundred entries in the contest, and today I received an email listing someone else as the winner. C’est la vie. I can still post it here.
Kate Bluett 