Like water flowing into dust,
a river running o'er,
one drop of you's a flood to us,
and still the rain, it pours.
And what could mere dust do but float
or sink beneath your waves
and cling to other drowning motes
to love them to their graves?
Oh, how can dust love other dust
or rest within its arms?
The river's current stirring us
will scatter us afar.
We rise and dye the water brown,
then settle where it slows
and cling again to those we've found,
and still the river flows.
O God, in you we live and move,
we break, we still, we die.
How little are our life and love;
how great the seas that rise.
But still you love each mote of dust,
though nothing it may be,
and still your current stirs in us
to bring us to the sea.
The mouth of the Connecticut River depositing silt into Long Island Sound after Hurricane Irene. By File:Sediment Spews from Connecticut River.jpg Robert SimmonDerivative work Ashanda (talk) – File:Sediment Spews from Connecticut River.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37820999
Untwine my fingers, Lord;
unwrap them from your hand,
from grasping where the nails have bored
and hammer blows did land.
Unclasp my winding arms
that circle you around
to cling to safety in the storm,
and let me run aground.
I clutch at you in fear
and say your wounds I'll tend,
but if my love should hold you here,
then how will you ascend?
How open up the way
and lead the exiles home?
If at my pleading you should stay,
oh, where, then, could I go?
You will not speak again
the words I long to hear,
but bid me go and vanish then:
You leave me in my fear.
Yet through its grip I know
what you have called me to:
Unclench my fists and let you go
that I may follow you.
From Eden, you were promised us;
then why were we surprised
to find you wedded to our dust,
like us, incarnate Christ?
You come to us in every day,
as hungry as the last,
to share the bread we bless and break
'til all our days are past.
It's not the bread alone that heals,
the work to make and serve,
but sitting, list'ning through the meals:
then, too, to you we turn.
So in our work and in our rest,
whatever we may do,
we seek you in the broken bread:
oh, may we look for you!
We seek you in the living word,
no matter who may speak;
then come to us in what we've heard
at every stranger's feet.
And may we always welcome you,
no matter your disguise,
and find the word of grace and truth
in every stranger's eyes.
There is a time for everything,
not only for our sorrows
but all that lives and moves and is,
today or yet tomorrow.
So gather up the stones
and build again the fallen:
What's rent may yet be sewn;
what's lost may be recallèd.
What withered in the heat of day
within the soil is sleeping;
the laughter that had flown away
will still supplant the weeping.
So play the songs and dance,
though mourning came with nightfall,
while good things fill your hands
no matter what yet might fall.
For dying will not always reign:
There is a time for birthing,
and healing always comes again,
though it be late or early.
With all that we have lost,
there's goodness still awaking:
an end for all our wars,
and dawn forever breaking.
In him were made all things,
of heaven and of earth;
all thrones and pow'rs, unseen and seen,
in Christ they have their birth.
He wrote them in the world—
all being is his book—
and signed his name on every scroll
when goodness said, “'Tis good.”
Not lost across the sea
or taken to the skies,
but printed here in everything
it meets our wond'ring eyes:
the letters of his name,
the spelling of his laws,
in every heart is writ the same
and spills from every mouth.
The Word himself is love:
It's stamped into our bones,
and through our flesh and blood it moves,
and from our hands it flows.
We need not wander far,
for he has come so near
and pressed himself upon our hearts,
the Word we always hear.
Endless wonder here beholding
underneath a sky of stars,
each a world of your unfolding
and a treasure of your heart:
What am I that you should love me?
Dust that barely speaks your name!
Yet the stars are dust above me,
shining with the brightest flame.
God, you made us like the angels,
though as animals we bleed.
In a world we make or mangle,
you put all things at our feet.
Teach us, then, to tread more softly
on the ground from which we spring,
and to help eachother upwards,
altogether there to sing.
We are feeble in our limits,
oh, but limitless your love!
It's a sea and we swim in it,
though we cannot hold a drop.
Still we revel in the wonder,
drawn forever to your flame,
joining every voice in thunder
as we sing your glorious name!
O Christ, your kingdom overturns the nations
and shakes them 'til the dead spill from their tombs.
You set us free to follow where you take us,
a house where you have built us endless rooms.
O carpenter, you know the boards have splinters,
and yet you build with them the Father's hall.
If there is room for me, the worst of sinners,
oh, then your house must have a place for all.
O lord of all, who walked here weak and homeless,
when you come near the mountains start to quake.
Then come and shake us, make our graves crack open,
that all who sleep in silence might awake.
O shepherd, lead us through our dying's valley
into the many mansions of your house,
and let not one be left behind in shadows,
but gather every sinner in your arms. Amen.
This elaborate image, Representation of a Pageant Vehicle at the time of Performance, was commissioned as the frontispiece to A Dissertation on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries Anciently Performed at Coventry by the Trading Companies of that City, (1825) by Thomas Sharp, (1770-1841). The image was designed and executed in copper engraving by David Gee (1793-1872). It recreates a 15th-century Passion play (The Trial and Crucifixion of Christ) by the Smiths’ Company of Coventry. Many of the details are based on written accounts, including pageant wagon design itself and the people in the street. The audience includes men, women, and children, along with armed guards for the wagon, men who drew the wagon from station to station, minstrels, clerics and a carpenter. The scene on stage depicts Christ, with hands bound, before an enthroned Pilate. Annas and Caiaphas are shown in mitred hats, and a boy carries a bowl of water for Pilate to wash his hands. Although somewhat speculative, the image has been influential and is often reproduced. By David Gee – Beinecke Library: http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3447379, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33359094
You set us barefoot in the world
to walk along its dusty streets,
not hunters sent to slay the wolves,
but lambs sent out to bring them peace.
The sheep are safely in your fold,
but all the ark must yet be filled
so you send lambs and make them bold
to call the beasts of wood and field,
of mountain height and open air,
of darkness under stone and sea.
To all you say, The kingdom's here,
through lambs your word has taught to speak.
To shorn and unshorn all alike
give us the courage, then, to go
that clean and unclean fill the ark
and all the world your mercy know.
We must not go out clothed in gold
or carried high above the dust,
but as you came into the world:
You walked the road as one of us.
To all who walk the dusty earth
or crawl or fly or swim its miles,
O loving shepherd, send us forth,
each one your peaceful kingdom's child.
Then we were terrified
and begged to see your power
when storm-flung waves crashed o'er the side
and panic ruled the hour.
What did we hope to see,
O we of little faith?
Not God, who caused the world to be,
commanding wind and wave.
More than the storm of fear,
this silence shakes our souls.
The louring skies begin to clear
of clouds your word controls.
As we, who feared our death
as if it were the end,
now shrink before a height and breadth
we cannot comprehend.
What sort of man are you,
who slumbers in the storm?
It disappeared at your rebuke,
and left us weatherworn.
O more than we can know,
sail with us through the world,
and if you sleep when tempests blow,
yet save us still, O Lord!
You set your hand upon the plow
and walked the furrowed track;
from heav'n to hell the road ran down,
and did you not look back?
From highest throne you sank to this:
no place to lay your head.
You left behind the Father's bliss,
as dead t'embrace the dead.
And did you never know regret
or wish the days rewound
to timelessness you'd not yet left
to till the barren ground?
For I could follow you in that,
in looking far behind.
On this relentless forward path,
what mercy can I find?
And mercy is my only hope,
unready as I am
to travel with you on the road
to face Jerusalem.
Forgive my lagging steps, my God,
and give me greater strength
to lift my eyes and look ahead
and love the journey's length.
Give me the courage, O my Lord,
to trail you to the grave,
if not with valor, then with myrrh,
though I should come but late.
Ancient Egyptian ard, c. 1200 BC. (Burial chamber of Sennedjem) By Painter of the burial chamber of Sennedjem – 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=154346
Kate Bluett 
