From All the Four Winds, Come

Then the LORD said to me:
Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy, son of man,
and say to the spirit: Thus says the Lord GOD:
From the four winds come, O spirit,
and breathe into these slain that they may come to life.
I prophesied as he told me, and the spirit came into them;
they came alive and stood upright, a vast army.
Then he said to me:
Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
They have been saying,
“Our bones are dried up,
our hope is lost, and we are cut off.”
Therefore, prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord GOD:
O my people, I will open your graves
and have you rise from them,
and bring you back to the land of Israel.
Then you shall know that I am the LORD,
when I open your graves and have you rise from them,
O my people!
I will put my spirit in you that you may live,
and I will settle you upon your land;
thus you shall know that I am the LORD.
I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.
Ezekiel 37:1-14

From all the four winds, come,
O Spirit of our God:
Give back the hope that's long been gone;
revive our buried hearts.
Breathe into these dry bones;
bring life from barren ground.
Restore our voices, or the stones
your praises will cry out.

Pour mercy on our souls,
your waters on our roots,
that we may grow back, healed and whole,
enrobed in greenest shoots—
not as we dressed at first
to cover shame and sin,
but in the new life bursting forth:
your Spirit in our skin.

Your life within us burns,
but flames cannot consume
that hearts now evergreen, returned
from deep within our tombs.
So we are whole again,
knit up in flesh and blood,
if only you will send the rain:
your mercy as a flood.

Epitaph ( 16th century ) showing the vision of Ezekiel ( 37,4 ) and the ressurrection of the dead ( City museum, Wels/ Austria ) By Wolfgang Sauber – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10394722

As a Sparrow Finds Its Shelter

“The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me in comparison with that time which is unknown to us like the swift flight of a sparrow through the mead-hall where you sit at supper in winter, with your Ealdormen and thanes, while the fire blazes in the midst and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest, but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter to winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.”
St. Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People

As a sparrow finds its shelter
from the raging storm outside
here amid the smoke and rafters,
guided by the fire's light,
yet it rests for but a moment—
for a moment and no more—
ere it flies out through the doorway,
from the storm into the storm,

so we all are born as sparrows,
come to light from the unknown,
and our moments fly as arrows.
Swiftly, swiftly, we are gone.
For the night outside still beckons
in the howling of the storm
with a sound that can't be reckoned:
Into dark, we fly once more.

God of light and God of shadows,
master of the shining hall,
plant this firelight in your sparrows
when we heed the stormwind's call.
When we fly from sound and fury
to the broad, unbounded night,
guide us on the homeward journey:
God of sparrows, give us light.

Venerable Bede in an illustrated manuscript, writing his Ecclesiastical History of the English People By http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/bke/0047/1v – http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/bke/0047/1v, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77974574

Stones and Water

Bring back your sons from afar,
daughters from all the earth's corners:
Draw us again to your heart;
give us new hearts for our stone ones.

We have been exiles so long,
dreaming each moment of Eden,
though we've forgotten its songs,
choked with the dust we're still eating.

Trying to make bread from stones—
stones were the seeds we had planted—
ground into dust with our bones,
dust is now all we are granted.

Pour the rains on us again:
Dust becomes mud becomes garden;
rivers of blood in our veins
pump through the ground we had hardened.

Flood all the waste with your streams;
lead us by spring and oasis
not back again to our dreams,
but to the new things you're making!

Lead where we've never yet gone,
not where the river first rises
but to the sea as its runs:
Mercy alone satisfies us!

A stream in Teesdale. By Mentifisto – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8646124

Down Every Trail

For the Feast of the Ascension:

The eleven disciples went to Galilee,
to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
Then Jesus approached and said to them,
“All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:16-20

Come with us, Lord, down every trail
and walk with us by day and night,
our compass when the stars have failed,
our lantern making dark ways bright.

You send us out into the world
to baptize all things in your name,
but in them all your embers burn
and wait to rise in glorious flame.

And in us, too, your Spirit shines,
a fiery pillar in our hearts.
Within ourselves your road unwinds;
with every step, new mercies start.

Give us the eyes to see your spark
and by its glow to find the way,
that love may guide us in the dark
and lead us into brighter day.

And so with us, within, without,
show us the pathway straight and clear
through night and day, through hope and doubt:
You will not leave us orphaned here.

End of the trail, Boynton Canyon, Sedona, Arizona

Moar Birbs!

Your Spirit came down like a dove
beside the river Jordan
to point us to the one you love--
now birdsong fills the morning.
We see the lilies of the field,
consider well the ravens,
and know your goodness with us here
on earth as 'tis in heaven.

The gulls that glide upon your breath
still hover o'er the waters.
Wherever sparrows build their nests,
there you have set your altars.
The swallows clinging to the eaves
know you are their true shelter:
the shade and safety of the leaves
your fortress and protection.

And if a single feather falls,
your hand is there to catch it.
If death should silence all their calls,
new life awaits new hatchings.
So bird to bird calls out your name
and note by note rejoices,
and we who marvel at this grace
lift up our hearts and voices!

Painted tiles with design of birds from Qajar dynasty By Unknown author – davidmus.dk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25157065

There’s No Voice

There's no voice if you are silent;
there's no echo in the dark.
There's no flame if you don't light it,
though we strive to strike the spark.

So my heart shall yet be formless
and my soul a waste and void
'til you speak a word and form them,
'til you fill me with your voice.

I am earth awaiting water,
to be furrowed for the seed.
Shape this clay into a daughter:
Spirit, speak again in me.

Take my earth for your remaking:
Unheard thunder in the ground.
Though subsonic, set me quaking
with the rumble of your sound.

Then, when I cannot yet hear it,
let me trust the word that springs
from your endlessness, O Spirit,
from the voice that in me sings.

In the hiss of spark on tinder,
in the bass that shakes my chest,
give me song to praise the singer
or to call the silence blest.

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

Fledglings

God knows the sorrow of the birds
for fledglings fallen from the nest,
the song that no more will be heard,
the empty place beneath the breast.

He saw the sparrow as it fell
and watched it growing cold in death
who wrapped it first within the shell
and counted every quickbeat breath.

And every year, of years on years,
he watches hatchlings fledge and fall;
no note is doubled to his ear,
no feather copied—firstlings, all.

And every sorrow of the heart,
and every nest bereft and bare,
alone stands naked in his dark
as one whole world beyond compare.

What is the weight of sparrowkind
in gravity's relentless pull?
A world ends in disrupted flight,
and still he carries each in full.

And for each one, a nest he builds
where sparrows rise up, ever spring:
his hands, with myriad feathers filled,
where nestlings fly and ever sing.

Song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) By Cephas – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=107680551

In the Furnace

Based on the story from the book of Daniel:

When my sudden doubt has cast me
in the furnace of my fears,
Son of God, O stand there with me
where the fires rage and sear!
Give me courage in the burning
not to run or douse the flame,
but to take it as an off'ring 
for the glory of your name.

In your kindness and your mercy,
Son of God, deliver me:
Stand beside me in the furnace
'til the flames lie down in sleep.
Let me see you in this wonder
where I'm burned but not consumed.
Though the furnace roars like thunder,
let me sing a hymn to you:

I am standing in your presence
in the crucible of fear,
and you make the flames your temple
when you stand beside me here.
Sun and moon, sing praise forever!
Stars of fire, bless the Lord!
Though the flames reach up to heaven,
Here my peace has been restored!

Fiery furnace by Toros Roslin, Mashtots, 1266 (MS No. 2027, Fol. 14 V.) By Toros Roslin – Scanned from L’Art Armenien, Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Flammarion, 1989, P.130, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4512447

You Are the Way

Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:1-12

You are the way, and so you must be opened:
a door unlocked, a beating heart laid bare.
You draw us in, by love we stand beholding,
to lead us on through ways we would not dare.
So heaven's road, before our feet unfolding,
is heaven too, though we walk unaware.

You are the truth, and so you must be spoken:
the silence split, a shaking in the ground.
The Word as bread is nothing until broken,
so, piece by piece to vanish, handed 'round.
We take you in, your way through us unfolding,
and seek you out wherever you are found.

You are the life, and so you must be borning:
blood in your veins, breath heaving in your lungs,
subject to sleep and rising in the morning,
to rise again when all our nights are done.
You bear us on along the way unfolding,
through earth and heav'n, forever on and on.

Gothic door of the St Magnus Cathedral (Kirkwall, Scotland) By MichaelMaggs – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72391144

Glassblower

If I must go into the flame,
yet breathe in me
that by your Spirit I am shaped,
your glass to be.

So whirling, thrust into the fire,
I am reformed.
Your hands turn me; your breath inspires;
your heat transforms.

Let me melt down: Let what I am
grow soft, dislimn.
Blow through the glowing hollow, then,
to sound a hymn.

So glory burns, so glory blinds,
I sag and run
into what shape you have in mind
within this sun.

When I am cold again and sound,
what shall I be?
Whathaveyou, but let grace be found
somewhere in me!

If there is beauty in the lines,
it must be yours.
By breath and flame, let your design
myself transform.

A glassblowing demonstration at the Northern California Renaissance Faire in Santa Clara County. By BrokenSphere – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11557213