Jonah

From Jonah’s song in the belly of the fish:

From the bottom of the ocean,
from the belly of the deep,
in the current's ceaseless motion
where the roots of mountains sleep,
I am crushed and I am frozen,
tangled up in wrack and weeds.
Hell alone is left below this:
You have cast me in the dea.

Swallowed by a deeper darkness
when the parted waters closed,
I am drowned within the heartbeat
of a mind that won't let go.
Can you hear me still, O Father?
Could your hand reach down so low?
I am buried in these waters;
I am carried where they go.

You who made both light and shadow
wrote your name upon them all;
I could read it if I knew how
somewhere on these prison walls.
So I cry to you—I shout it!—
just a whisper in your halls.
Father, send your mercy down here!
How much deeper will I fall?

The Pistrix, the Sea Monster that swallows Jonah (La Pistrice che ingoia Giona, XIII sec. – Campanile del Duomo di Gaeta) By Sergioizzo – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57892841

Send a Star

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,
in the days of King Herod,
behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,
“Where is the newborn king of the Jews?
We saw his star at its rising
and have come to do him homage.”
Matthew 2:1-12

To wherever we have wandered,
forged a way and set down roots,
send a star for us to ponder:
Show us how we long for you.

In the pathways of our seeking
where our end is all unknown,
send a star in silence speaking
words that lead us back to home.

Not to fear it at its rising,
though the road it marks is long:
Send a star of hope still bright'ning,
giving strength to travel on.

Not to turn from it in anger
at the labor it demands:
Send a star to give us bravery
as we take our gifts in hand.

Give us wonder for the journey
though the days are hard and grim.
Send a star that shows your mercy
when at last we come to him.

Give us love for Christ the Savior
who, like us, your image bears.
Send a star; illuminate us.
Let us see the face we share.

The Three Magi, Byzantine mosaic c. 565, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy (restored during the 19th century). As here Byzantine art usually depicts the Magi in Persian clothing which includes breeches, capes and Phrygian caps. By Nina-no – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2176501

Not to Eden

See us crowding in the streets,
trying just to reach you,
or kneeling, crouching at your feet.
Begging, we beseech you:
Let your shadow fall on us;
that would be enough, Lord.
If just your cloak were touching us,
we could get up once more.

Son of David, Son of man,,
Lord, have mercy on us,
and let us be made whole again:
Lay your hands upon us.
Son of Mary, Son of God,
you have walked beside us.
Now meet us here upon the road.
Heal us, Christ, and guide us.

Now to Eden's shady groves—
there is no returning—
but forward to a greater love.
Lead us through our yearning.
Not to sorrow's shadowed vale,
there to stay forever,
but on beyond it, whole and well,
let us journey ever.

jesus-healing-the-sick-by-gustave-dore-1832-1883 Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14764413

Reach Out Again

O saving Christ, bridge-builder
that earth and heaven spanned;
reach out again and give us
the comfort of your hand.

Between ourselves and safety
a chasm streches out.
Reach out to us, O Savior;
lean down and catch us now!

Then set us, in your mercy,
upon the level way—
so long we have been searching
and led ourselves astray.

Now when our steps would wander
away to right and left,
direct us to your shelter:
the rock that you have cleft.

And if we cannot climb there,
bear us upon your wings.
Sure refuge let us find there
above these arrow stings.

But if you will not lift us
above the sordid ground,
come down and be God-with-us.
O merciful, reach out!

Charles Bridge in Prague By Chosovi – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=764636

The Name

When eight days were completed for his circumcision,
he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel
before he was conceived in the womb.
Luke 2:21

The name first given by the angel
and all our hope's long-burning flame,
the word of God that is salvation,
O Jesus, come and speak our names.

Not for a moment's flare and fading
but for unending fire in God:
This was the purpose of our making;
this is the burning in our heart.

Call us, eternal Son begotten,
call through our struggles and our doubt.
Call us the names we have forgotten;
whisper the words or rise and shout.

Call us, and give us ears to listen,
not to the voices of our lies,
but to the promise of our mission
and to our heart's most honest cries.

Teach us to speak the names you've given,
to fill your heaven with the sound
of your creations, ever-living,
at home where all your love is found.

The Father's will in our creation,
the Spirit filling us with breath,
O, speak and let us be, Salvation,
through life and far beyond our death.

Madonna with the Christ Child Writing, Pinturicchio c. 1500 By Sailko – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31598892

The Hope We Could Not Dare

The hope we could not dare
comes on us unawares,
the endless years' relief,
to catch us like a thief.

A baby's cry at night,
a darkened sky made bright,
the winter's cold turned warm,
the silent midnight torn.

And all that we had known
on angels' wings has flown:
The proud set down, despised;
the humble lifted high.

Those long-unheard will shout;
the deaf hear them announce;
the blind point out the Lord
who rules without a sword.

For those who sit in gloom,
the rose once more has bloomed.
Now does the virgin dance
for joy that fills her hands.

Upended universe
where heaven dwells on earth,
yet upside-down, it sings
for him, the king of kings.

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Angels Appearing before the Shepherds, 1910 – Smithsonian American Art Museum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22435183

Not a Palace

Not a palace, but a stable
where the floors are muck and grit,
we all come as we are able,
come to give the king our gifts.

All that could have been or would be,
open but to God alone,
he has lost to gain a body,
gave potential up for hope.

So my fear and my ambition
I will lay before him here.
Let the future be uncertain
while the infant God sheds tears.

All my anger, all my vengeance:
Lay them down in straw and dirt.
God's own wrath could be perfection,
but he laid it down in birth.

All my envy and my longing,
these as well I will lay down:
Deep desire itself is calling
with a newborn wailing sound.

And this fragile mortal limit,
breath and pulse in flesh and skin:
He has come to dwell within it.
O my stable, welcome him!

The Door of Humility leads into the Church of the Nativity (Basilica of the Nativitiy). By Ian and Wendy Sewell – http://www.ianandwendy.com/Israel, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3092042

Simeon

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.
This man was righteous and devout,
awaiting the consolation of Israel,
and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit
that he should not see death
before he had seen the Christ of the Lord.
He came in the Spirit into the temple;
and when the parents brought in the child Jesus
to perform the custom of the law in regard to him,
he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying:
“Lord, now let your servant go in peace;
your word has been fulfilled:
my own eyes have seen the salvation
which you prepared in the sight of every people,
a light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel.”
Luke 2:22-35

Let me go in peace, Lord; 
let your servant go.
You have done as you swore 
all those years ago:

First to Eve and Adam, 
covered in their shame,
then again to Abraham, 
that he'd hold his claim.

So to wand'ring Israel: 
pasture for his flock;
Moses in his exile: 
water from the rock.

David in his palace, 
on his throne secure;
Babylon in malice, 
weighed and wanting more.

So at last to me, Lord: 
Now my eyes have seen
light to show the whole world 
all that you have been.

I have seen salavation; 
now in peace I'll sleep.
God, who kept me waiting, 
all his vows will keep.

Simeon in the Temple, by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1631 – http://www.mauritshuis.nl : Home : Info : Pic, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=157936

After Bethlehem

For the Feast of the Holy Innocents.

What will you say to the mothers?
What angels did you send to them?
You saved your own son, but no others,
that midnight in Bethlehem.

Oh, we may call them your martyrs,
the innocents slaughtered by men,
but how can we call you their Father,
who left them in Bethlehem?

This love that would let us destroy us
that freedom might not be hemmed in,
and yet, it's this love that would join us
a-weeping in Bethlehem.

It won't lift a finger to save us
from cruel and powerful men,
yet it will shift heaven to raise us
someday after Bethlehem.

But not 'til it, too, has been slaughtered
and battered and ravaged by sin,
forsaken by even the Father
long decades from Bethlehem.

Then lift up your voices, you mothers;
you fathers, cry out, and again,
for heaven looks down and it shudders
to see us in Bethlehem.

François-Joseph Navez, The massacre of the innocents, 1824 – anagoria, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19057789

Abba

As an infant babbles “Abba,”
or lets out a wordless cry,
so we wail for you, O Father:
Will your mercy pass us by?
You have seen us in our anguish
and you have not turned away,
but you sent your Word unlanguaged
who once uttered night and day.

Now he lies, as we lie, helpless
in the limits of our flesh,
and will one day lie there breathless
in the stillness of our death.
Where the silence is unbroken,
there the Word of life will go,
though he cannot be unspoken,
all our wordlessness he'll know.

So he wails across the midnight
with a newborn's feeble strength,
as each one of us begins life,
cry as old as birth itself.
He has joined us in our wailing;
let us join our cries to his
for the mercy neverfailing:
Father God, your mercy give!

Nativity of Christ, medieval illustration from the Hortus deliciarum of Herrad of Landsberg (12th century), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31441189