This is your word, your promise from the ages,
that we should see the coming of your light.
So prophets spoke, so hoped our saints and sages,
though long the years and longer still the nights.
So I have prayed, have pondered on the pages
to fill the days 'til you should meet my sight.
I shall not sleep; I shall not leave my calling
'til I have seen your promises fulfilled,
for I have known your Spirit on me falling;
it teaches me the reaches of your will
so close at hand, and closer to me drawing.
Ready I stand, and I am patient still.
When will you come to end the years of waiting?
When shall I see the light that was foretold?
The days go by, but hope is unabating;
though strength may fail, your Spirit still upholds.
For you will come, in days of your own making,
and this I know: Your face I'll yet behold.
Your work in six days was complete
when all the earth was new,
but still you labor faithfully,
creation to renew.
All things are working back to you
that here are incomplete,
then let me labor as you do,
who labors within me.
Draw out of me the rawest good
to make the seventh day.
Work in my body and my blood,
for I am made of clay.
Then in my lesser way I take
the clay, the wine, the wood,
and in your image here I make—
and sometimes it is good.
Take my imperfect making, Lord,
as you take bread and wine,
and in your mystery transform
the dross to the divine.
For every gift that I call mine
was from your chalice poured
and back it flows, a streaming line,
where I must follow, Lord.
The whispered words were, “Let there be,”
that filled the earth with us.
“Return,” the whisper next shall be,
and we shall all be dust.
A thousand years within your sight
are breezes come and gone,
a restless stirring in the night
that vanishes at dawn.
So we shall fade, so we shall pass,
a sigh upon the wind
caressing new-mown stems of grass,
that shall not come again.
Yet there is this: Your Spirit breathes
and stirs the fallen dust.
An ordinary wonder weaves
through every grain of us:
That anyone could love the mote
caught in the sunny beam
or settled in the grime to coat
the world that you let be.
Then let us love each other's dust
as you have loved it first.
Your Spirit blown in each of us
shows us what dust is worth.
To the tune AURELIA (“The Church’s One Foundation”):
The prophet has no homeland;
the seed can find no soil.
It falls among the stones then,
where soon it is destroyed.
The murmur of our scorn now
drowns out the savior's voice.
So Jesus in his own land
has nothing for his toil.
But still he stands among us;
the Scriptures are fulfilled,
and though we turn and shun him,
the Spirit is not stilled.
The Christ is waiting for us
in answer to God's will:
the prophet who can cure us,
the only bread that fills.
Then turn again and seek him,
not in some distant land,
but even here we reach him
by stretching out our hand.
The prophet still can teach us,
the savior still befriend:
O, heal us, heal us, Jesus,
whose mercy never ends.
Narrow is the road I follow,
never yet has it gone straight,
over hill and through the hollow,
early though I walk and late.
While I pass through light and shadow,
will it lead me to your gates?
Though my courage wanes and wavers,
though my steps are small and weak,
though I never catch you, Savior,
though I never hear you speak,
every mountaintop is Tabor;
every hill is Calvary.
Nothing have I for my journey
but the love that draws me on,
ever twisting, ever turning,
'til all sense of place is gone.
Through the midnight, through the morning,
still I seek some other dawn.
Shall I meet you under your skies
if I cannot find you here?
Shall I see myself in your eyes
if my sight is never clear?
I must follow where my love lies;
let my wand'ring bring me near.
“Why do you persecute me?”
a voice from somewhere sounds;
unsettling and unsoothing,
a blinding light surrounds.
Lord, bring us to that moment,
confounding all we know,
renewing us in conscience:
our own Damascus road.
We cannot know our blindness
while we have eyes to see,
the depths of our unkindness
'til we are in the deeps.
Let mercy's waves wash o'er us;
from death we may yet rise
and seek the light before us
as scales fall from our eyes.
The men and women shackled
in chains that we have forged,
the children left abandoned:
Help us to free them, Lord.
For they are you, O Savior,
imprisoned by our ways.
Come blind our hearts to hatred
to see your endless day.
Lord, set me high upon the rock,
too high for me to reach,
where overhead the vultures flock,
and jackals underneath.
Yet in the shadows here I rest;
dust devils touch me not.
An infant at a mother's breast
am I upon your rock.
I called you, and you heard my cry,
when I was lost in fear.
You came to me in dead of night
and quickly drew me near
that I might rest beside my God
and hide beneath your wings.
Now I will stay upon your rock,
your name forever sing.
Then let fear come upon me now;
let enemies draw night:
I still will pay my every vow
to you, who hears my cry.
Let death itself creep underneath
the shadow of your wing,
it will but join me here in peace
and with my spirit sing.
The Spirit of the Lord has come
and filled the weary heart.
It whispers of what God has done,
and what has yet to start:
of captives given sweet release
and good news for the poor,
the bowed of all their burdens freed,
kingdom's open door.
The Spirit of the Lord has come,
the ancient hopes fulfilled,
to free the songs that fear struck dumb
and racing heartbeats stilled,
to take the blindfold from our eyes,
the fingers from our ears,
that we may see the morning rise,
the kingdom drawing near.
The Spirit of the Lord has come,
anointing those who hear,
who see the wonders God has done,
proclaiming God's own year.
Then let us rise up to proclaim
and rise to meet the task
of healing in the Savior's name:
The kingdom comes at last!
Have pity on me, O my God;
have pity, God, I pray,
for evils trample on my heart
and fill my mind each day.
Relentlessly they press me, Lord,
and put my hopes to rout,
that at their feet now I have poured
more tears than I can count.
Yet though my tears are numberless,
you count them as the stars
and gather them into the flask
where you keep all our scars.
My days and nights are filled with fear:
Fill them still more with trust,
and if I cannot feel you near,
yet meet me in the dust.
Oh, come, take hold of both my hands
and fill them with your strength,
so I may fight—or merely stand—
beneath the blows that rain.
But one by one shall they turn back:
They see you here and flee,
and when you come to fill my lack,
what can they do to me?
So you will rescue me from death
and stand with me in strife.
You fill my body with your breath
here in the land of life.
My feasting has gone sour,
for there is no more wine,
and though I know 'tis not your hour,
O Jesus, it is mine.
My jars have all run dry:
There's nothing left for you,
but if you tell me, I will try
what you would have me do.
The water of my well—
Can you accept it, Lord?
For this is all I have to fill
the jars that must be poured.
So then I bring to you
what cannot be enough:
Can even mercy now make do
with what I have, for love?
From water into wine
the distance is so great
unless it travels through the vine—
then take it, Christ, I pray!
And make what I have, yours.
(Your hands first held it fast.)
Make wine where only water pours
and bring the best out last.
Kate Bluett 