In fear and wonder you have made
your creatures from the earth;
within the womb's enfolding shade,
before the strains of birth,
you shaped and drew each form and line
and made us each to your design.
The darkness of the soul is bright
before your searching gaze.
Though I should shroud myself in night,
you still know all my ways.
I have no secrets from your view:
My everything is known to you.
If I could ride the wings of dawn
to where the sea meets sky,
still from your sight I'd not be gone,
not though I flew so high.
If I should run to hide in hell,
yet there beside me you would dwell.
You know me, when I sit or stand,
my pulse, my every breath.
More than I do, you understand
my life, myself, my death.
What workings-out you work in me
are far beyond what I can see.
Far more than I can comprehend,
the wonders of your grace.
If I could run to where they end
and all your works outrace,
still would you stand beside me, Lord,
and I would stand in silence, awed.
Bejaardenhuis ‘t Höfke: Interieur kapel, gebrandschilderde glas : “Psalm 139”, linkerraam van de serie van 3 ramen, van beeldend kunstenaarTed Felen, 1983 (opmerking: Dia door kunstenaar Ted Felen geschonken aan de Rijksdienst voor de Monumentenzorg) By Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24036508
I have forgot the outline of your face,
and if you touched me once, the warmth is gone.
I feel my way by memory of grace;
by echoes, find a way to shuffle on.
They say we will ascend, as you did first—
What road could take us from the bitter earth?
What heart that strives to rise so would not burst
to leave behind the furrows of its birth?
My earthbound soul could never fly to you,
not even if it saw or knew the way.
I walk upon the earth or tunnel through,
imagining I chase the light of day.
How shall I find what I no longer know,
but for the line that snags and pulls my heart?
Keep reeling me where I could never go;
O Lord of fish and fishers, keep me caught!
And come to me again: Hallow the ground,
as once before, where I am wandering,
where bread breeds more and every sheep is found
because you reign. Good Shepherd, be my king.
Left on a hilltop, gazing at the sky,
searching for you, O Christ ascending high.
How can we go and wait the Spirit's fall?
Come back, O Master! Come, O Lord of all!
Yet you have sworn we shall not orphans be,
nor shall the eyes you touched no longer see;
then give us stronger sight to see you still.
Give us your love, our grieving hearts to fill.
Give us your hand to hold as we go on;
give us your light, still breaking with the dawn.
And as we go to speak your name and grace,
give us in all the vision of your face.
Then, when the road we travel find its end,
draw us to follow where you now ascend.
Christ, in your every footstep we would go,
coming at last to know the joy you know.
Send down the Spirit, as you promised, Lord,
that we may share your name with all the world.
Though you have gone, yet with us ever stay;
walk with us into everlasting day.
I am a sparrow in your field,
a swallow in your skies.
I have no sword, I have no shield
when from the ground I rise;
no might or power do I wield
but songs and calls and cries.
Within the shadow of your wings,
no eagle but a wren,
who neither gold nor silver brings,
not fervent hearts of men,
who never hunts but only sings—
shall I be welcome, then?
Before your throne, is there a place
where I may build my nest?
Beside the altar of your grace,
the refuge of the blest,
shall I come there to see your face
and take, at last, my rest?
If you had wanted eagles, Lord,
then eagles you'd have made,
not sparrows gleaning on the sward
or nesting in the shade;
but you made me, and heavenward
I flutter, unafraid.
A post-Incarnation-and-Ascension take on Psalm 121:
I lift my eyes: The sky is bare;
the mountains frown their dark dislike.
Black vultures hover on the air,
as falcons soar until they strike.
Not from the mountains comes my help,
the fickle skies of sun and rain,
though he beneath them both has dwelt
who shares each hour of toil or pain.
Beyond the circle of the skies,
wherever heaven hides its throne,
he is, who hears my heartfelt cries
and sees I do not weep alone.
For he who slept in Mary's lap,
he neither slumbers now nor sleeps,
but looses snares and baffles traps
and restless, tireless vigil keeps.
Not from the mountains or the sky
comes that which lifts me from the dust,
but from the heart that love bled dry:
In that alone I place my trust.
Come, Lord, who reigns all earth above;
come down beneath these skies and heights.
Come, free me by your ceaseless love,
and keep me always in your sight.
Another one on the “Remain in my love” theme, to the tune PASSION CHORALE (“O Sacred Head Surrounded”):
O Jesus, you have called us
to shelter in your love.
In mercy you enfold us;
your arms reach out above.
And how shall we remain here,
as you remain in God?
By doing as you say here:
In love we shall respond.
You give a new commandment
to those you call your friends,
not rising to be grandest
but kneeling down to tend:
to lose our lives in service,
to wash each other's feet,
not so to make us worthy
but make our joy complete.
Remaining in the Father,
you bid us, too, remain
by loving one another
through toil and trial and pain,
poured out as living water
from your unceasing spring.
You call your sons and daughters
to love in everything.
One for today’s readings, to the tune O WALY WALY, which I have in my head as “Take up your cross, the Savior said, / if you would my disciple be.”
Remain in love, the Savior said,
as in the Father's love he stays,
and if we follow where he's led,
we'll walk the earth in love's own ways.
Remain in love, as love commands,
who knelt to wash his brothers' feet,
and offer, too, your head and hands—
his joy in you shall be complete.
Remain in love, as Christ reveals
the love the Father has for us,
when even death itself he heals
and makes the sinners glorious.
Remain in love as love remains,
responding to the deepest call
to bear the load and break the chains
and show the love of God for all.
Remain in love, the Savior says;
his joy in you shall ever be,
as you become his witnesses,
and let the captive ones go free.
Be who you were made to be, and you will set the world on fire.
St. Catherine of Siena
Give me the wisdom, O my God,
to know who you made me to be,
to dig among the rocks and clods
and find the seed amid the sod
you planted deep in me.
Give me your vision; give me sight
to see what you made me to be
and hold fast in the fearsome night
and in the glare of noonday light
and follow where it leads.
Give me the courage, give me strength
to be who you made me to be,
inhabiting the breadth and length
and filling every height and depth
that you have set for me.
Give me the heart of Christ your Son
to love who you made me to be,
although the work is not yet done,
the race has so much left to run,
still, set today's love free.
Give me the Spirit, Father God,
and make who you made me to be,
a flame within the guttered world,
a light within your shadow curled.
Delight, O God, in me.
When the season’s readings dwell on the Last Supper Discourses, you get things like this:
You go to make a place for us,
O Christ who left the Father's side;
then teach us in that grace to trust
that we shall come where you abide.
The many mansions of your house,
the altars where your sparrows nest:
They call us on through toil and doubt
with hopes of shelter and of rest.
There is no bar upon the gate,
no lock upon the open door.
We come in each unhallowed state
and find that you have made us pure.
The bitter valley fills with springs
as you unfold yourself, the way,
and every step new comfort brings,
new truth, new life, in each new day.
And all who came forth from your love,
your blood and water mixed with earth,
turn back to where they started from:
the lifelong labor, second birth.
Come Lord, and lead us on the road,
O Christ the road, O Christ its end!
Come, gather us into your fold:
Eternal Shepherd, ever tend!
One for today’s Gospel reading. It fits BROTHER JAMES’ AIR, in terms of meter, but I’m not convinced that’s the right tune:
O Father, grower of the vine,
you nurture our deep roots.
You prune us by your Word divine
to shape our new-grown shoots,
and you will press the flowing wine
when we have borne our fruits.
Do not, good grower, cast us off
or tear us from the vine,
but give us sun and rain enough
to grow to your design
and bear the greatest fruits of love,
with Christ the Son entwined.
Oh, keep us ever in the vine
as he remains in you,
partaking in your life divine
that fills us through and through,
until we come to drink the wine
where it is ever new.
Kate Bluett 
