Summer Thunder

When you rend the skies asunder
and the earth dissolves in fire,
will it sounds like summer thunder
when the wind is rising higher?
When we see your lightning flashing
as the clouds are turning black,
will we greet the rain with laughter
like it's mercy coming back?

As the angels weep for glory
and they gather 'round your throne
crying, Holy, holy, holy,
like cicadas' endless drone,
will you take a coal that's burning—
just a Texas summer day—
purify all that's unworthy,
set our hearts and minds ablaze?

Until then, O lord and savior,
let the mockingbird still sing;
let the chorus of cicadas
tell the summer you are king.
Though the grasses start to wither—
for they fade away like us—
we will praise you while we're still here,
'til your storm kicks up our dust.

Annual cicada. By Bruce Marlin – Own work http://www.cirrusimage.com/homoptera_cicada_T_linnei.htm, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=671173

Kingdom

Jesus said to the crowds:
“This is how it is with the kingdom of God;
it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land
and would sleep and rise night and day
and through it all the seed would sprout and grow,
he knows not how.
Of its own accord the land yields fruit,
first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once,
for the harvest has come.”
He said,
“To what shall we compare the kingdom of God,
or what parable can we use for it?
It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground,
is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.
But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants
and puts forth large branches,
so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.”
—Mark 4:26-34

The kingdom of God's a little seed;
no one thought it came to much,
but it grows beyond what we can see
into everlasting love.

It fell to the ground: We thought it lost
like the leaves of yesteryear.
It woke and it grew—how, we knew not—
first the blade and then the ear.

When we cut it down the grain was ripe,
and it fell like one who's dead,
but we lift it up with rich red wine,
and we live on broken bread.

And the beggars from the byways eat
where the kings cast off their robes,
and the tax collectors take their seats,
and we all of us come home.

The birds of the sky will take their rest
where the branches spread out broad,
in the shade where the swallow builds her nest,
in the kingdom of our God.

Identifier: wildlifeoforchar00inge (find matches) Title: Wild life of orchard and field; Year: 1902 (1900s) Authors: Ingersoll, Ernest, 1852-1946 Subjects: Animal behavior Publisher: (New York London) Harper & brothers Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry By Internet Archive Book Images – https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14761113296/Source book page: https://archive.org/stream/wildlifeoforchar00inge/wildlifeoforchar00inge#page/n188/mode/1up, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43688808

Seen

In the shadows of the garden,
I've been hiding in the leaves.
If you see, how will you pardon?
I am Adam; I am Eve.
I am Jonah bound for Tarshish,
but the sea brings no relief.
I am stiff-necked and hard-hearted,
and I'm hanging like a thief.

When you call, how can I answer?
I am naked to your sight.
Do not look at me, O Master;
do not turn on me your eyes.
I have loved the works of shadows;
I have told the world my lies.
All my making is disaster,
and I cannot bear your light.

Further to the shadows driven,
yet you call me, and I come,
and the hands that I have riven
still reach out for me with love.
Like a Father for his children,
you have mercy on our dust.
All there is is this forgiveness;
this is all there ever was.

Fall of man Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie ;;;fot. By After Albrecht Dürer – National Museum in Warsaw, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98886658

In Their Time

Lord, they who trust you stand like heights,
unshaken in your strength,
but sorrow comes in with the night
and rivers burst their banks.

And when the mountains fall like tears,
how shall we stand our ground?
Amid the locust-eaten years
what harvest have we found?

The field, the grain, the wine, the oil,
you sent us in their time,
and blood and pain and sweat and toil
around your gifts were twined.

Now we reach up with empty hands
to an unfeeling sky:
O, send you blessing on the land!
we beg with throats gone dry.

Somewhere there is a table spread
by one who knows our need—
the goodness of the wine and bread—
where we will sit and feast.

And more than bread and more than wine
will fill these empty hands.
You send your good things in their time:
Send peace to us again.

By Floris van Dyck – 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=150586

Fractured

Summoning them, he began to speak to them in parables,
“How can Satan drive out Satan?
If a kingdom is divided against itself,
that kingdom cannot stand.
And if a house is divided against itself,
that house will not be able to stand.
And if Satan has risen up against himself
and is divided, he cannot stand;
that is the end of him.
But no one can enter a strong man’s house to plunder his property
unless he first ties up the strong man.
Then he can plunder the house.”
—Mark 3:20-35

A house divided cannot stand:
The roof will kiss the floor.
When civil war consumes the land,
the kingdom stands no more.

Then how shall I, fragmented heart,
stand upright on my own?
No, I will take my fractured parts
and lay them at your throne.

Come, then, O king and conqueror:
That strong man bind in me.
What plunders me, O plunderer,
bind fast, and set me free.

Drive out the demons driving me;
the space that's left, come fill.
Knit me together, piece by piece,
that I may do your will.

Then I shall be your own, O Lord,
when I at last am mine,
one with the throng before your throne:
Your body, and your bride.

The Hanged Man’s House, Cézanne, 1873. By Paul Cézanne – Paul Cézanne, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=132795

Sacred Heart

Thus says the LORD:
When Israel was a child I loved him,
out of Egypt I called my son.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
who took them in my arms;
I drew them with human cords,
with bands of love;
I fostered them like one
who raises an infant to his cheeks;
Yet, though I stooped to feed my child,
they did not know that I was their healer.
—Hosea 11:1, 3-4

As if the first were not enough—
God's boundlessness in Mary's womb—
a second miracle was done:
Th'eternal made itself a room.

The ever endless love of God 
within a heart of flesh and blood,
the Logos entered human bonds,
the loves that draw us heavenward.

The infant on his mother's breast,
her eyes upon him filled with love,
a father's tender first caress:
Himself the wellspring drank thereof.

The friendship of his brothers, then,
the service he so oft received,
he turned in love to serving them:
He washed them and he bid them eat.

Now in his sacred heart reside
the many human loves he knew
within the ceasless ocean tides
of love divine and ever new.

As flowing out and flowing in
God's loves and our loves intertwine
within the heart that beats in him.
He walks these seas to reach our side.

Christ and the sacred heart, c. 1200 AD, East wall inside porch, St Mary the Virgin, Eryholme By Profsdmartin1 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=113970803

Exodus

Like Moses in the desert,
barefoot before the flame,
or Samuel in the temple,
I did not know your name.
But you knew mine and called it,
O God of Abraham:
I come now as you draw me
to touch the great I Am.

Not to some distant mountain—
I would not know the way—
yet stones are springing fountains
in my mundanest days.
I have no mystic vision;
no angels fill my sight.
You are more deeply hidden,
but still I have your light.

Yes, I have walked this desert
and fallen in its traps,
but guide me, O my shepherd:
I have no other map
than lines across your body,
like veins that show through skin.
They lead me to your heartbeat:
O, let me enter in.

Henry Daras : Le buisson ardent.Musée d’Angoulême, Charente (France). By JLPC – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18059038

Hold Fast

O God, who made the mountains firm,
the earth not to be moved,
when we are shaken by the storm,
oh, shelter us in you.

The mountains bow to winds above;
the hills wear down at last.
Help us to hold fast to the love
that always holds us fast.

The seas that held beneath your feet
or stood as walls of waves,
are rising up now, swift and steep,
to carry us away.

Upon their peaks or in their depths
or swallowed by the whale:
Wherever we shall find ourselves,
your love will find us there.

What mother could forsake her child
or father could forget?
But if they did, our hopes, our lives,
would be in your hands yet.

Though we may walk through fire and flood,
through want and pain and fear,
oh, let us hold fast to your love
and find you ever near!

Mount Everest, Earth’s highest mountain By I, Luca Galuzzi, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1810976

Lamb of God

When Christ came as high priest
of the good things that have come to be,
passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle
not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation,
he entered once for all into the sanctuary,
not with the blood of goats and calves
but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
—Hebrews 9:11-15

God, who made in the beginning
light and dark, and earth set spinning,
in the center set a tree.
Not for punishment of sinning
was the fruit of it forbidden,
but to wait a greater feast.

Foolish, though, in our impatience,
we reached out to take and taste it:
We were cast out into dust,
from abundance to abasement,
ground that drank the blood of Abel.
Good and evil broke on us.

We could not reclaim the garden,
but there came with us a promise:
Outcast we would not remain.
So we filled the earth with altars,
seeking mervcy with our offerings,
healing for our sin and Cain's.

Lambs and goats: Their blood was useless,
though by gallons we bestrewed it,
soaked again the bloodstained ground.
Life poured out for life's renewing:
Something more than us must do it.
Mercy must itself pour down.

So he came, the Word incarnate,
God-with-us in breath and heartbeat,
bread of heaven as our feast.
Earth he walked becomes an altar;
he himself for us he offers.
Christ becomes our great high priest.

Now he enters, once forever
into that eternal temple,
mercy running o'er the brim.
Not with blood of bulls of heifers
but his own, for our redemption.
Healed at last, we enter in. Amen. Alleluia.

Behold! The Lamb of God, by Henry Ossawa Tanner. This painting dates to Tanner’s student era in Paris, and appears to be a student copy of Anguish by Schenk. – https://www.artnet.com/artists/henry-ossawa-tanner/4, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=132791876

Visitation

The fountain where salvation springs
that death could not destroy:
From you, the flood shall topple kings
and mighty ones despoil.
The poor shall taste the feast he brings:
the grain, the wine, the oil,
but in your heart yet keep these things
and pour them out in joy.

Because of you, then, blest are we
on whom those waters spilled:
Christ Jesus shall the hungry feed
and empty he shall fill.
Now blest are those who have not seen
but who believe him still,
and blest are you who have believed
the Word would be fulfilled.

For now the desert runs with streams
transforming us within,
and we can rest in Christ our peace,
his pastures cool and dim.
So pray for us, that we might see
God-with-us, bone and skin,
and pray, O Mother—let it be!—
that we shall be like him!

Manuscript Illumination with the Visitation in an Initial D, from a Choir Book. Art forgery attributed to “the Spanish Forger” – https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/467415, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59007587