Peter On the Deck

After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,
“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”
Simon said in reply,
“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,
but at your command I will lower the nets.”
When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish
and their nets were tearing.
They signaled to their partners in the other boat
to come to help them.
They came and filled both boats
so that the boats were in danger of sinking.
When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,
“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him
and all those with him,
and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
who were partners of Simon.
Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid;
from now on you will be catching men.”
When they brought their boats to the shore,
they left everything and followed him.
—Luke 5:1-11

Who are you who can call
a catch from empty seas
to fill our nets, our boats, and all,
yet bring me to my knees?

See, I had fished all night
my gaping hold to fill,
but at the dawning of the light
my boat was empty still.

Depart from me, O Lord;
I am a sinful man.
I'd not have taken you on board
if I had known your plan.

For when you gave the word 
I cast my nets again—
and I was caught by what I've heard.
Your nets are catching men.

You draw me from my sea—
I cower on the deck
and don't know if my life will be
a voyage or a wreck.

But I'll obey the call
to cast these nets once more
and offer you, my God, my all—
not my catch now but yours.

James Tissot, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, Brooklyn Museum – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2006, 00.159.87_PS1.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10195917

Simeon

Now, Master, you may let your servant go 
        in peace, according to your word,
    for my eyes have seen your salvation,
        which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples:
    a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
        and glory for your people Israel.
—Luke 2:22-32

Now, Master, let me go
according to your vow,
for I have seen the sky aglow,
the stars and planets bow.

The long-awaited light 
at last has touched my eyes.
I could not die while it was night,
who knew the sun would rise.

This dawn you have prepared
to drive away the dark;
it comes that all the world be spared,
and I have seen its spark.

So I may go in peace
where all my hope's concealed,
for sin retreats and sorrow flees,
now light has been revealed.

Though long you've lent me breath
I cannot pay the debt,
but I am not afraid of death:
This sun shall never set.

My hour at last comes due:
I go into the gloom,
but I have seen your word come true—
Its light will fill my tomb.

Presentation of Christ in the Temple, South German, likely altarpiece wing, late 15th century. (Private collection) By Anonymous – Photograph of old art work (>500 years old)., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55999507

Refiner’s Fire

And suddenly there will come to the temple
    the LORD whom you seek,
And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.
    Yes, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.
But who will endure the day of his coming?
    And who can stand when he appears?
For he is like the refiner’s fire,
    or like the fuller’s lye.
He will sit refining and purifying silver,
    and he will purify the sons of Levi,
Refining them like gold or like silver
    that they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD.
—Malachi 3:1-4

O come, refiner's fire;
now to your temple come
and with your fullness purify
our hands, our hearts, our tongues.

Like one who works in gold
and burns the dross away,
refine our senses to behold
your ever bright'ning day.

Yet we are fragile things
and cannot bear your heat:
Come as a spark, an infant gleam,
your heart with ours to beat,

to grow as we all grow
and show us day by day
the endless stream of light that flows
into your glory's blaze,

that we may learn to bear
the light and heat of truth,
to cast out fear and come to dare
to nearer draw to you.

Then, Lord, we shall endure
your bright eternal flame,
when love and mercy make us pure—
It was for this you came.

Candlemas day by Marianne Stokes, 1901 – https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/stokes-candlemas-day-t02108, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1382468

Beacon

When my weary soul is aching
with the burden on me laid,
and I lose the road I'm taking
in the fading of the day,

light a beacon where you dwell here.
I'll lay down my heavy load
where you light shows me a shelter:
I will rest here from the road.

Lord, I know my way's been easy—
I'm not meaning to complain.
Nonetheless, my heart is bleeding:
Will you leave me in my pain?

For you travelled here before me
with no place to lay your head,
yet I'll find you in the morning
standing sentry by my bed.

Though I lay me down in shadow,
though I cannot find the light,
let me find your peaceful meadow
in the stillness of the night.

As you blessed the loaves and fishes
so your people could go on,
bless the coffee and the dishes
in the light of one more dawn.

Give me courage for the journey;
give me hope for journey's end.
Keep your beacon in me burning
when the darkness comes again.

Arkadi Monastery / Moni Arkadiou. Lamp in the church By Wouter Hagens – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4170241

Eden

It's not that anything is changed
between this moment and the next,
but everything is rearranged—
and with new eyes you read the text.

The overpass beneath my wheels
I dread, but dare not close my eyes.
I drive as if no image fills
my mind, of plunging from its side.

If I don't watch the needle pierce
the fragile stronghold of my skin,
I am still whole—until that glimpse.
Before I knew, there was no sin.

You'd looked on Eve a thousand times.
Day after blessèd day you'd seen
the way her hips and shoulders rhymed,
then all at once it was obscene.

Don't think about it.  Just don't look.
The words are there, but I can't read—
until I can.  The world's a book
and in its pages something bleeds.

Yet Eden, as it ever was,
lies all around us, full of snakes,
and all that blessed us then still does,
reaching out through paragraph breaks.

“Eve and the Serpent.” Plate from Penholm by G. Howell-Baker.- https://digital.cincinnatilibrary.org/digital/collection/p16998coll21/id/38116/rec/1, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104281987

Beating Heart

Brothers and sisters:
As a body is one though it has many parts,
and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,
so also Christ.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,
and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.
—1 Corinthians 12:12-30

We are your living body, Lord—
your hands and fingertips.
Your blood into our veins is poured;
your breath is on our lips,
and whatsoever we have held
you have, through all our senses, felt.

Then, Savior, empty these our hands
of all things hard and sharp,
to hold each other as your lambs
against your murm'ring heart
and feel you nothing else but this:
the “yes” of all God's promises.

Then we shall not be “yes” and “no”—
as changeable as wind
and torn and tattered as it blows—
but only, “Yes, amen”
when every echo of your heart
reverberates in every part.

And give us eyes at last to see
what prophets longed to know:
your eyes again, your hands and feet,
alive in every soul,
your beating heart in every chest—
and where we find it, there to rest.

detail study for the “Heller Altarpiece” By Albrecht Dürer – Google Arts & Culture, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21792217

One Bride, One Body

Not as in David's era,
the man of many wives,
nor Solomon's great harem
and all his concubines,
but there shall come a Bridegroom
into the banquet hall,
his banner o'er us flying,
and he will wed us all.

And there will be no widows,
no orphans in the street,
but all shall come within doors,
reclining at his feet,
and all the words he's spoken
of mercy and of love
will bless the bread he's broken—
and there will be enough.

No strife or competition 
shall separate his brides;
his bounty and his wisdom
will bind us at his side
and we shall feast together
where new wine ever pours,
one bride forever wedded,
one body in the Lord.

Brautzug der Sulamith Geschlossener Zustand der Kabbalistischen Lehrtafel in der Kirche von Bad Teinach Als Braut: Antonia Prinzessin von Württemberg, Schwester Eberhard III.By Johann Friedrich Gruber – eingescannt aus: Hansmartin Decker-Hauff: Frauen im Hause Württemberg, Leinfelden-Echterdingen, 1997, ISBN 3-87181-390-7, S. 99, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1905265

There’s No Highway Through This Desert

I have stood here in the wasteland
with the Red Sea at my back,
and the army that had chased me 
was a ripple in the wrack.

I have walked here as a pilgrim,
held your wisdom ever dear,
sought your face across the distance—
I have wandered forty years.

There's no highway through this desert
and no river in these sands.
I am lost where winds are endless,
looking for a promised land.

But you've said a day is coming
when the highway will appear,
when the river will come running—
O my God, let it draw near!

Lay a level road before me
as you laid one through the sea.
Turn the desert into orchards;
let the famished come and eat.

Until then, O God, I wander
waiting for the feast to come.
Part the sands as you did water:
Lead the weary exile home.

An inferior mirage seen in the Mojave Desert in a Nevada spring By Brocken Inaglory – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10842357

Choicest Wine

And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine,
without knowing where it came from
— although the servers who had drawn the water knew —,
the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him,
“Everyone serves good wine first,
and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one;
but you have kept the good wine until now.”
Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee
and so revealed his glory,
and his disciples began to believe in him.
—John 2:1-11

The wedding guests call out for more,
but all the jars are dry.
There's nothing left to give, O Lord:
I have run out of wine.

They beat the table like a drum,
and what am I to do?
But still your hour has not yet come—
What's this to do with you?

For at your wedding supper, Lord,
the wine will not run out
but flow on from an endless store
'til every thirst is drowned.

And endless feast of endless days
where every plate is full
and every song is thanks and praise
that God is bountiful.

But now you tell me, Fill the jars.
It's water, even so.
The feast's already gone so far—
Perhaps no one will know.

Yet we are given choicest wine—
You kept it until now
to fill the cups with joy divine:
O Savior, pour it out!

Print about the Wedding at Cana. Made at the end of the 16th century. Preserved in the Ghent University Library.[40] By Unknown author – Ghent University Library, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94525555

You Could Have Walked the Jordan

You could have walked the Jordan
as once you walked the waves
like solid ground before you
above our countless graves,
and steadfast on the waters
you had no need to dive.
Though all before had faltered,
you could have stayed alive.

For since the days of Noah
we had been deep in flood;
since Eden, even older,
our ways have drowned in blood.
Yet Jordan's waters cleansed us
and freed us from our sin.
But death is still relentless:
We swim and sink again.

Though Jordan would have parted,
laid dry land at your feet,
you sank like Pharaoh's army
where Adam lies with Eve
and all their sons and daughters
since Satan fell from heav'n—
and up out of those waters
you bring them back again.

The Baptism of Christ, Aert de Gelder, c. 1710 – http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6893009