Graft

We tore creation from your hands
and turned your gift to serve our ends.
The old and withered stump still stands—
You graft it to your self again.

Peel back the layers of your bark,
and carve into the heart's deep wood
to make the sickly shoot a part
of all your offer up to God.

And reaching up to heaven now,
draw all the world up from that root
until your mercy blossoms out
and what was rotten bears good fruit.

But when will growing days be done?
The harvest feast is so far off!
Grow on, O Christ, 'til kingdom come
that all the world may reap your love.

Wedding

Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready,
but those who were invited were not worthy to come.
Go out, therefore, into the main roads
and invite to the feast whomever you find.’
The servants went out into the streets
and gathered all they found, bad and good alike,
and the hall was filled with guests.
Matthew 22:1-10

The king has called his servants,
sent missives out:
The world shall cease its turning,
the stars burn out.

This shall be how the world ends:
not with a bang—
ah, no, but with a wedding
for Christ our king!

And look, the invitation:
It has your name.
Cast off your hesitation;
prepare the way!

Go not about your business:
There is no time!
The groom is all impatience
to drink new wine.

Put on your snow-white garment,
your wedding gown;
the firstfruits of the harvest,
your bridal crown.

Get up!  Come to the wedding!
Come to the feast!
Christ has made all things ready:
Sit down and eat.

Parable of the Great Banquet by Brunswick Monogrammist (circa 1525), location: National Museum, Warsaw By Brunswick Monogrammist – cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23207722

Eclipse: October 14, 2023

The noonday sun is darkened;
the moon devours its light 
as angels come to harvest,
for now the time is ripe.
We stand before their sickles
well knowing we will fall:
The Valley of Decision
will swallow us up whole.

Forgive us all our failures:
Great Judge, pardon our crimes!
Your hand alone can save us
here at the end of time.
We know that we're unworthy,
but still we kneel and ask:
Grant us, O Christ, your mercy
on this, the day of wrath.

But if tomorrow's coming,
if we have one more day,
let it be, Sun of Justice,
the dawning of your rays.
And let this shadow change us,
this darkness make us new,
that we'll no more be strangers,
but that we'll love like you.

Annular solar eclipse By Smrgeog – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19656057

Crumbs

You came to heal a broken world,
and broken you've become.
I come before you begging, Lord,
to share in mercy's crumbs:
Give me the hope I'm longing for,
though healing never comes.

My God, how foolish, but how bold—
you didn't count the cost
but left the ninety-nine in fold
and set out for the lost.
At least you're with me in the cold,
though all the gates are locked.

So here we sit outside the doors
like beggars at the feast
that others all go streaming towards
while we are left in grief.
Yes, I believe—you know it, Lord—
but help my unbelief.

And while the guests all eat their fill,
you bless and break these crumbs
as I pray for a miracle
I know will never come.
O Shepherd, give me courage still
to say, Your will be done.

Woman baking bread (circa 2200 BC); Louvre By Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69938567

Sons and Mothers

O God of Isaac, God of Ishmael,
and God of children given up to death,
O God of Joseph, God of Israel,
give back what we have lost. Restore our dead.

But God of Sarah, God of Hagar lorn,
you know the empty arms and shattered hopes,
and God of Rachel, God of Leah scorned,
gather the children laid beneath these stones.

For you gave Isaac back to Abraham:
Restore our sons to us as desert streams!
Take all we have—a thousand slaughtered lambs!—
but leave our sons.  Take all, but leave us these!

And we will bless you in our poverty
and trust your grace that lets us hold them near.
Let cities turn to dust beneath our feet,
let mountains crumble, still we will not fear.

We tremble now, who know what Cain has done,
who hear the wailing of those bloodstained stones.
O Abel's God, you spared not Mary's son:
Breathe in our sons who lie there with your own.

Let Miriam sing the resurrection song
when you have led them all out of the sea,
our sons and theirs together in one throng,
back to their mothers.  Let our weeping cease.

German or Netherlandish 15th Century, Pietà, c. 1450–1500, National Gallery of Art By German or Netherlandish 15th Century – This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the National Gallery of Art. Please see the Gallery’s Open Access Policy., CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74853452

Vineyard

Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard:
What more was there to do for my vineyard
that I had not done?
Why, when I looked for the crop of grapes,
did it bring forth wild grapes?
Now, I will let you know
what I mean to do with my vineyard:
take away its hedge, give it to grazing,
break through its wall, let it be trampled!
Yes, I will make it a ruin:
it shall not be pruned or hoed,
but overgrown with thorns and briers;
I will command the clouds
not to send rain upon it.
The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah are his cherished plant;
he looked for judgment, but see, bloodshed!
for justice, but hark, the outcry!
Isaiah 5:1-7

When justice turns to bloodshed,
when outrage does not cease,
when we fear not your judgement,
how can we speak of peace?

We claim to be your vineyard
while trampling down your vines,
but you will tread the vintage
we have so long denied:

To shatter all our strongholds
and leave us in the ruins,
unless we turn from bloodshed
and let ourselves be pruned.

The vines that we have trampled,
that should have been our feast,
were you, O gentle master,
in all your last and least.

Do not destroy the vineyard—
We still can bear good fruit!—
but teach us your new vintage.
Train us to grow anew.

So may our hearts be grafted
into your holy vine
that we become your branches
and bear your holy wine.

The Red Vineyard, 1888 by Vincent van Gogh, is the only van Gogh painting sold during his lifetime By Vincent van Gogh – History of the Red Vineyard by Anna Boch.com, 2nd upload: wikipaintings, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3073079

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