Not Eden

Each night we dream of Eden
and drench our beds with tears
until dawn burgeons eastward
and morning rises clear.

Those dreams are fit for nighttime,
for we have never seen
a home but this, our exile,
where harps hang on the trees.

For this, too, is a garden,
each year by sweat renewed
until the day of harvest 
when God shall make it new.

No more the fruit of knowledge, 
but apples sweet and red
and wine and rushing water
and every bite of bread.

The harps hung on the aspens
no songs of Eden play
but notes that leave us gasping
when breeze-led branches sway.

And Christ, who walked the furrows,
shall gather in all these
and in his lasting morrow
shall make of this his feast.

Late summer dawn over the Mojave Desert, California By Jessie Eastland – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64756573

Behold the Wood

Behold the wood on which was hung
the thief who comes at night.
Behold the thieves he dwelt among:
My Lord and God! we cry.

The throne whereon the wounded king
inaugurates his reign,
that every inch of punctured skin
now winces at his pain:

We all have held or dragged those limbs
since Eden spat us out 
to build this throne express for him,
to weave his wondrous crown,

and we have knelt there at his feet
and wiped them with our hair
in pity for the wounded thief
who came our grief to bear,

for, oh!, our shoulders know the weight
of what cannot be borne,
as every bent knee rises straight
to bear it up once more.

But even this he has redeemed,
this endless weight of wood.
The fallen seed lifts up the tree,
and he shall bear us, too,

L-Kreuz Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=402182

Flood

Have in you the same attitude
that is also in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:1-11

Like the wine from heaven's cup,
Christ now pours being out 
'til the world's abyss fills up—
Mercy ends the ancient drought.

He, the very form of God,
would not grasp at godliness.
No, he came to take the cross:
Heaven cast out from itself.

Still, his mercy still pours down,
river from an endless sea,
never to be emptied out:
Mercy in infinity.

When the seas are gathered in,
earth and heaven are renewed,
then—O, Mercy!—only then
shall he cease to pour in flood.

Then shall rivers clap their hands,
deafen earth with their uproar.
At his name, each knee shall bend,
every tongue confess him Lord.

Christ, who fell to earth for us,
who was lifted on the cross,
fills creation with his love,
shows to us the form of God.

Victoria Falls, Zambia By Someone35 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15702489

Angels

A thousand eyes watch over me,
a thousand wings my shield,
a host of angels hovering,
on feathered winds they steal.

With every move I brush against
the pinions of their gaze,
and bordered by a downy edge
I walk the dusty ways.

Before me and behind they go;
they circle me about,
and every breeze that whispers low
is comfort in my doubt

that I am held in tenderness
and touched by love unseen,
that all this world of wilderness—
and I—have been redeemed.

Tobias and the Angel by Filippino Lippi, created between c. 1472 and c. 1482 – National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C., online collection, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45723195

Feast

Now thus says the LORD of hosts:
Consider your ways!
You have sown much, but have brought in little;
you have eaten, but have not been satisfied;
You have drunk, but have not been exhilarated;
have clothed yourselves, but not been warmed;
And whoever earned wages
earned them for a bag with holes in it.
Haggai 1:1-8

You made this world to be our feast,
created and laid down in love,
and told your children, come and eat—
We did, and oh, what have we done?

We took and ate, but hunger grew
and burned unceasing in our flesh,
for what we took was not of you,
and all our feasting turned to ash

We planted, but we grew no grain;
we've eaten, but we hunger still.
Our endless labor brings no gain,
our hearthfire cannot warm the chill.

We drink, but cannot lift our hearts;
our gold has nothing good to buy.
There is no end to our false starts;
our thirst is never satisfied.

But all creation is your feast:
We walk the table you have set.
You made us for this eucharist;
you made us for your gift of bread.

Teach us, O Lord, to feast again:
Give us the water that is life.
Give us the voice to say Amen
to all that truly satisfies.

Floris Claesz. van Dyck 001 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

First and Last

Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.
Matthew 20:16

When all our ranks and rites are past,
the first go not before the last.
When all who go, go there as dust.
the last go not before the first.

The fruit is from the selfsame vine:
Adorned in gold and jewels fine
or dressed in rags, or starved or dined,
alike the selfsame shroud shall wind.

The rich have not a rarer breath;
their grasping cannot beggar death,
and paupers, too, new wine will press:
the resurrection of this flesh.

No gold or rags, but blood and bone,
no jewels but the eyes alone:
So poor and rich shall rise as one
to bow before th'incarnate son.

Then all we've hidden shall be seen,
all we have failed to be or been,
all cut and mended, stitched and seamed—
each ragged edge shall be redeemed.

And all the gilded and adorned,
the battered, broken, bent, and torn
shall stand alike before the Lord
and drink the selfsame wine outpoured.

The Dance of Death (1493) by Michael Wolgemut, from the Nuremberg Chronicle of Hartmann Schedel Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=490534

Something Bigger

So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more,
but each of them also got the usual wage.
And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying,
‘These last ones worked only one hour,
and you have made them equal to us,
who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’
He said to one of them in reply,
‘My friend, I am not cheating you.
Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
Take what is yours and go.
What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?
Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?
Are you envious because I am generous?’
Matthew 20:1-16a

You called us from the market
and from our own affairs
to labor for your harvest,
and we have done our share.
But you pay us as others
whose work cannot compare.
Shall mercy be unjust, then?
Should mercy not be fair?

We labor for forgiveness,
for working off our debt,
as if our sins were figures,
writ on a balance sheet.
Such hope is all too little—
a crumb instead of bread.
You offer something bigger:
You offer us yourself.

Of heaven's feast you tell us:
You sowed, and we shall reap
beyond all we can reckon,
beyond the count we keep.
Your mercy keeps no record,
though what you paid was steep.
Instead, you make us welcome
and bid us take and eat.

Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard: Workers on the field (down) and pay time (up), Byzantine Gospel of 11th century, BnF, Cod. gr. 74 By Unknown author – Byzantine gospel. Paris, National Library., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9472307

Allwheres

It is the LORD who goes before you; he will be with you and will never fail you or forsake you. So do not fear or be dismayed.
Deuteronomy 31:8

Through all the days that lie ahead
and all the nights when dawn's unsure,
along the ways laid for your steps,
remember that he walks with you.

Though cliffs rise up on every side
and mountains tumble to the sea,
yet go, for still your guard and guide
is with you, when all others flee.

With every step that you may take,
his heavens on their axis spin;
encircling you, asleep, awake,
without beginning, without end.

Awake, asleep, astray, at home:
it is his road before your feet,
and you will not step out alone.
At every turn, it's him you meet.

So go, and even when you fear,
you still are somewhere in his palm,
and every step, away or near,
allwheres you go, to him you come.

A paved Roman road in Pompeii By Paul Vlaar – http://www.neep.net/photo/italy/show.php?3390, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=173413

Tears

When the Lord saw her,
he was moved with pity for her and said to her,
“Do not weep.”
He stepped forward and touched the coffin;
at this the bearers halted,
and he said, “Young man, I tell you, arise!”
The dead man sat up and began to speak,
and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Luke 7:11-17

You beheld the widow weeping—
Did you know then what would come:
at the cross her station keeping, 
Mary with belovèd John?
You stepped in and raised the sleeping,
gave the widow back her son.

Knowing how Eve wept for Abel,
Rachel for her children wept,
knowing Martha—faith unshaken—
mourned when you delayed your steps,
did you guess what Mary's fate held,
keeping vigil at your death?

Eden tore us all asunder;
life by dying was undone.
Bread of life, you knew our hunger:
Make our separation one.
Give us back to one another,
death by dying overcome.

Tears have been our bread since Eden,
since the day we took and ate.
We have had our fill of feasting,
sated since the days of Cain.
You who joined us in our weeping, 
let it be the bread you break.

Take these tears and make them hallowed;
let our weeping make us one.
Let them, then, give way to dancing;
let rejoicing come with dawn.
Let the widow's prayers be answered:
Give her back her only son.

Resurrection of the son By Wilhelm Kotarbiński – cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23801336

Scars

O God, look down from heav'n and see:
Alone, you pierce the veil
and know the wounds that do not bleed,
the grief of hopes that fail.

So bend your ear to heart-rent cries
gone hoarse with all the years,
too soft to pierce the distant skies:
Hear us and count our tears.

What if these wounds should never heal,
these wrongs be not undone?
Before you throne then shall we kneel
as torn as your own son?

For surely he has borne our pain
as he has died our death,
and still the marks on him are seen,
yet peace is in his breath.

Shall heaven be a wedding feast
where all the broken come,
called from the highways to their seats
around a broken groom?

He drew his brother to the wound
and bid him touch the heart.
See, Father, we are wounded, too:
Let Christ dwell in our scars.

“The incredulity of Thomas” from an English manuscript, c. 1504 By Unknown author – This image is available from the National Library of WalesYou can view this image in its original context on the NLW Catalogue, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44920993