Confirmation

Descend, O Spirit: Touch our minds;
create our thoughts anew
always to seek the just and right,
true goodness to pursue.
As you are blowing where you will,
so let us wander, too,
and seek out every space you fill
and ever follow you.

Descend, O Spirit: Touch our hearts;
be rooted in our souls
to heal each weary, wounded part
and make the broken whole.
And as you played upon the waves,
let us play in the world
creating messages of grace
that show your love unfurled.

Descend, O Spirit: Touch our hands
and put your strength in us
to labor for our Savior's plans,
the kingdom of his love.
And as you speak in many tongues
that every land has heard,
so let us join your endless song
in action and in word.

Detail from a fresco at the Karlskirche in Vienna By Johann Michael Rottmayr – selfmade by User:Manfreeed, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9396330

Cries

When justice streams from heaven, will it burn
or drown the world as in a second flood?
Will we have time to run for cover first?
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,

whose truth shall spring up from the tired ground,
obliterating what we thought was safe.
Was it on rock or sand we built the house?
He comes, he comes, the reckoner of days.

For he has heard the wailing of the poor—
Weep then, you rich, at your impending doom.
He comes to give us each our sure reward,
and how can earth not quake when heaven stoops?

Yet all these things will pass and silence fall,
and every knee shall bend before his might,
but ere he judges, God will stoop still more
to mourn the passing of each blameless light.

Unshroud the dead; let him see every face,
and tremble, heaven, as he sees who died.
Roll back the stones, disturbing every grave,
and let him see their hands, their feet, their sides.

O angels, turn your faces; do not look.
O six-winged seraphs, hide your flaming eyes.
Earth would dissolve in fire if it could,
not to be there when its creator cries.

By Józef Chełmoński – http://www.pinakoteka.zascianek.pl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=292402

Trinity

Unfathomed depths we cannot sound
where deep calls out to deep,
within you only am I found
if you are found in me.

As if my little could contain
the one who holds the world—
and yet, O welcome one, remain.
You promised it of old.

Then if I search my shallowness,
you meet me in my heart,
and if I venture to your depths
I find myself, O God.

My being: Savior, take and clasp,
and I would take you so,
not as a treasure I can grasp
or something I could know,

but as you are, a mystery
known only to yourself.
Known, knowing, knower: trinity
by which I know myself.

Then dwell in me, O triune one,
and I will dwell in you.
A pas de deux, the kingdom come,
as you make all things new.

Renaissance painting by Jerónimo Cosida depicting Jesus as a triple deity Inner text: The Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God By Creator:Jerónimo Cosida – Own work, photograph by Revolware, 2008, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4174824

Leviathan

You made Leviathan to play with,
delighting in the crushing depths,
and in his mass you placed your Spirit,
to fountain up with every breath.

The birds that fly beyond the sunrise
can never migrate from your sight.
Before the hatchling's feeble first tries
you plot the movements of its flight.

And if a sparrow falls from heaven
you mark the place where it goes down,
for you who numbered every feather
were with it in the air and ground.

Then when I turn and flee you headlong
you wait for me at journey's end.
Should I refuse your call and sending
you are beside me as I stand.

So Jonah found you in the gullet
and in the bowels of the whale.
You came up with him, wrack and vomit,
in the bright sunlight on the shale.

Praise God who made the whales and fishes,
who made the sparrows and the hawks.
Praise God who made me as he wishes,
my fins and feathers, starts and balks.

The Pistrix, the Sea Monster that swallows Jonah By Sergioizzo – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57892841

Enemies

For Pentecost:

From the thistles east of Eden
where our sorrow soaked the ground,
where the stones cried out in grieving
Cain had struck his brother down,
we were always locked in combat,
always at each other's throats
'til a falling flame changed all that,
'til it touched us and we spoke.

From the rising heights of Babel
to the walls fo Jericho
we have lived each day a battle,
turned our swords against a foe.
'Til a rushing wind from elsewhere
whispered in our hearts a word,
'til it turned our swords to plowshares,
'til it touched us and we heard.

We are enemies and others;
we are Parthians and Medes;
we are killers of our brothers,
but the truth will make us free
when it fills us with one Spirit,
sings one song in every tongue,
when it speaks, when we can hear it,
then the Word will make us one.

Tower of Babel by M. C. Escher. Woodcut, 1928. By M. C. Escher – https://arthive.com/escher/works/200099~Tower_of_Babel, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8162683

Harvest

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house,
he began to ask them,
“What were you arguing about on the way?”
But they remained silent.
For they had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.
Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them,
“If anyone wishes to be first,
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Taking a child, he placed it in their midst,
and putting his arms around it, he said to them,
“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me,
receives not me but the One who sent me.”
—Mark 9:30-37

Those who receive the seed receive the harvest,
and with the sowing enter in the feast.
Those who receive the Son receive the Father;
Christ gives to them the Spirit of his peace.

Who plants the acorn will receive the forest
and all the birds that nestle in its shade.
Within the seed there lives the morning chorus,
and with it all the music ever made.

Then if you would receive the risen savior,
receive the child he sends you, in his name,
and as a child receives a parent's caring,
you have no need but in his arms to stay.

For all the world's great love is in your loving,
and each beloved bears the face of God.
Your every good work brings the kingdom coming,
each seed a harvest hidden in the sod.

Acorn By Alias 0591 from the Netherlands – Acorn, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74284721

Tongues

For Pentecost:

As a body is one though it has many parts,
and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,
so also Christ.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,
and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.
—1 Corinthians 12:12-13

There is no language in the world
where it cannot be said,
no speech in which it can't be heard:
the hope beyond our death.
In every tongue we find the words,
in everyone the breath.
In all of them, Christ came to serve
and share the broken bread.

There is no barrier in him
to Parthian or Mede;
no man or woman's light is dimmed;
in him, all slaves are freed.
The body might deny its limbs,
but he has washed those feet
and poured himself out for our sins
who bids us sit and eat.

As one we come before him now
with all our grace and fault,
as one bring every gift and doubt
in answer to his call.
Our shepherd will not cast us out
when he is all in all,
who sends the Spirit in its hour
as tongues of fire fall.

The Pentecost depicted in a 14th-century Missal By Unknown author – National Library of Wales, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44768060

Thistles

Cast out from our parents' garden,
poured our sweat into the soil:
Thorns and thistles for a harvest,
little for so great a toil.
Yet, O Lord, will you accept it
when we bring our sacrifice?
Will you, can you, take and bless it
if we have no greater tithe?

What you spoke at our beginning
when you took the formless world,
molded, shaped it, set it spinning,
called its dusks and dawnings good,
does that word still echo for us
though our shaping comes to naught?
Does that goodness still enfold us
if our harvest goes to rot?

Messy, naked, hungry, empty
we come from our mothers' wombs;
we will go forth in the same way
to the silence of our tombs.
Only you can fill these hands, Lord,
with the gifts you'd have us bring.
Take our nakedness and failure:
Let it be our offering.

Planta de cardo en flor, en una vereda de Montevideo By Fadesga – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=144819271

Guide

Where is the one who divided the waters before them—

winning for himself an everlasting renown—

Who guided them through the depths,

like horses in open country?

As cattle going down into the valley,

they did not stumble.
—Isaiah 63:12-14

You led your people through the waves,
your children through the depths
like horses on the open plain
who run for joy itself.
Then lead me as your led the herd—
oh, let me stumble not!—
by light and dark, by breath and word,
through death to life, O God!

And when you lead me through the depths
and chasms of my fear,
not only lead but draw my steps
and walk forever near,
that in the night of my abyss
I shall not want for light,
but as in all things so in this,
I find you still my guide.

So if I cannot see the way,
your mercy's flame still burns.
Though I am dark, yet there is day,
and always it returns.
I trust these dark and fearsome deeps 
are open to your sight,
then if you will my journey keep,
I'll run on through the night.

Wild Horses on the Range By Bureau of Land Management – http://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/photo_gallery/photo81.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4746172

Ascending

So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them,
was taken up into heaven
and took his seat at the right hand of God.
But they went forth and preached everywhere,
while the Lord worked with them
and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.
—Mark 16:15-20

The Son of God, who for our healing fell,
once lifted up, islifted up again,
who sank and rose up from the depths of hell;
the one who came from heav'n to heav'n ascends.

But all the world is different in his wake:
The light from light that could not be put out
shines brighter now in every candle flame;
our hearts still burn with fire no tears can douse.

For death has been undone, and night is bright,
and little loaves a hungry world can fill.
Though heav'n on earth is hidden from our sight,
yet heav'n is here, for he is with us still.

Now we descend, who watched him going up;
now we can take the downward running road
and eat the bread and drink the selfsame cup
and die and rise and follow still our Lord.

Ascension of Christ and Noli me tangere, c. 400, ivory, Milan or Rome, now in Munich. Photo: Andreas Praefcke – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3576630