Taken In Adultery

Another take on Sunday’s Gospel:

I have sinned, and I shall perish:
Lord, the punishment is just.
Mene, mene, tekel, peres,
you are writing in the dust.

Every idol that had beckoned,
I turned wanton and gave chase,
every minute, every second:
Now you've numbered all my days.

You have weighed me, found me wanting:
Insubstantial is my heart,
for I cast it on the waters
and the waves pulled it apart.

So here come the Medes and Persians
for the fragments I have left.
All my loves and my aversions:
I am fraying, warp and weft.

But all those who read my sentence
in the dust that is our grave
bear no witness to repentance:
They have faded like the wave

as the letters you have written
vanish at your merest breath,
and you write a new acquittance
on my heart, erasing death.

Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, 1565 by Pieter Bruegel, oil on panel, 24 cm × 34 cm (9.4 in × 13.4 in) – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15452042

Go and Sin No More

Mashing up today’s readings:

What was spoken in the darkness
shaped all things as they were then—
so the earth and seas were parted
'til God brings them back again,
'til his rivers fill the desert
or the ocean waters stand,
'til he brings us to his presence
and we find the promised land.

What was spoken in creation 
earth and ocean answered true.
Now is God all things remaking—
he is doing something new.
Crossing deserts, crossing waters,
all that once kept us apart,
he seeks out his sons and daughters
and he brings them to his heart.

What was spoken first in Eden
making all things, making us,
he is writing at our feet here,
drawing new life from the dust.
Not the words of condemnation
for the things that came before,
but the words of new creation:
Go, my own, and sin no more.

Maps

O God, if it were simple, would you tell me,
Or is that wisdom only worth its cost?
I've bought so much that others tried to sell me,
but every map I've followed got me lost.

There is a process, paring down the dead weight,
a strange impatience in passivity,
of letting change occur when it feels too late
as wounds heal in a wonder I can't see.

I fling myself against the bars of waiting—
how many of these scars are from my hands?
but when the moment comes I find I'm ready,
and some new map unfolds for distant lands.

So bandages and scabs fall off behind me—
They have to: I can't carry any more.
You are the road I tread, so I tread lightly.
You are the road, and then you are the door.

Then let me lay down all my old resentments.
The needle's eye's not big enough for these.
I've got a ways to go to reach that entrance.
Lord, guide my feet into the way of peace.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi, Hereford Cathedral, England, c. 1300, a classic “T-O” map with Jerusalem at the center, east toward the top, Europe the bottom left and Africa on the right By Unknown author – unesco.org.uk, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41201813

Sennacherib

Based on 2 Kings 19.

Sennacherib has trampled down
the gods of every land:
They lie there on the ruined ground,
all victim to his hand.
Then shall we trust the God who saves
when other gods are lost
and topple headlong to our graves
before his endless host?

There's Dagon shattered in the mud,
and Delphi shuts her mouth.
Ba'al wakes not to drink the blood
of prophets crying out.
Osiris looked at him and blenched;
Asherah's pole is snapped;
and even Moloch's thirst is quenched—
lo, all the blood he's lapped.

So now the message comes to us,
all honey-sweet and glib:
We'll be another hive to buzz
for great Sennacherib,
and who shall stand against this king
that shows the gods are weak?
Before the power he will bring,
what promise can we seek?

You lift no sword when all gods fall—
O God, you sink yourself,
and you shall rise above them all
to conquer death by death.
Unforced by any mortal hand,
you are the sacrifice.
And so ends every human plan:
Sennacherib here lies.

Cast of a rock relief of Sennacherib from the foot of Cudi Dağı, near Cizre. The cast is exhibited in Landshut, Germany, Photo By Timo Roller – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39985581

I Have Been the One

He said to him,
‘My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found.'”
—Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

I have been he demanding
my share of all you have,
entreating—no, commanding;
you have been he who gave.
Give me what I'll inherit:
I take the money 'n' run
No, love would never dare it,
but I have been the one.

And I have been the angered,
outraged on your behalf
that for the proud and thankless
you killed the fatted calf.
How can you be so blind as
to ignore what I have done?
How can you not despise him?
Yes, I have been the one.

But I have been forgiven 
again and yet again.
You, Father, are forgiving 
of all that I have been.
You are the one who sought me
in every place I'd run.
From death itself you brought me
always to be your son.

Return of the Prodigal Son By Rembrandt – Hermitage Torrent (.torrent with info-hash), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7490475

Thirst: The Woman at the Well

Reading over the optional Gospel for last Sunday, I was struck by how cynical the woman at the well sounded:

Give you some water, did you say?
Go fetch yourself a drink.
This is the well our father gave—
You'll give me living springs?

Fine.  I won't keep on coming here
to fill the jar with this
through every day of every year
as if it's all there is.

To know it wears away my life
and hunger for it still—
you don't know what this thirst is like,
but someday, oh, you will.

You'll know the hopelessness that burns
beneath an empty sky,
when all your love goes unreturned
and still the ground is dry,

and no one sees without a sneer.
You're left by God and men
with nothing but their mocks and jeers—
and what will you do then?

You'll cry aloud, as I have done
when nights are at their worst.
And who will hear you then, old son,
when you wail out, “I thirst”?

But if God hears—they say he does,
he's close to hearts in pain—
d'you think the Almighty weeps for us?
'S that why he sends the rain?

Then maybe skies will open up
and something new will pour.
And you and I can raise a cup—
not thirsty anymore.

Samaritan woman at the well 1651 by Gervais Drouet – RA 516 Photo By Didier Descouens – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65152015

Fig Tree

Originally for this Sunday, but being posted on the Annunciation:

The fig tree does not blossom;
no grape swells on the vine
that twines around the crossbeam—
yet we shall drink the wine.

And though your arms are empty,
and withered is your root
as barren as the fig tree,
you, too, shall bear good fruit.

For something sweet is growing
to burden barren wood,
its sap forever flowing,
its roots where Adam stood.

It blossomed in the desert
with Moses drawing near,
the Godhead fully present—
Take off your sandals here

and see the flame that dances
where nothing yet had bloomed:
It burns along your branches,
but you are not consumed.

A fount in you is flowing
and never will it cease,
for Christ himself is growing
all on our barren trees.

Traditional icon of Our Lady of the Burning Bush (Neopalimaya Kupina). By Anonymous – http://days.pravoslavie.ru/Images/ii2914&263.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3639213

Eve of the Annunciation

This is the final moment of “before,”
the last day of our unheard crying out.
Tomorrow comes what's never come before:
The first drop ending eras of our drought.

Unseen, as minuscule as all our hope:
one drop, but it's enough to break the light
and show the wonders hidden from our scope
since first we hid ourselves from heaven's sight.

One drop tomorrow, presaging a flood—
and all our fears of drowning in that day
are washed of all the centuries of mud
that clogged our wheels—it opens up a way.

Our vision of the world breaks all apart
in colors that were always buried there
when heaven beats within a human heart.
You come, O Christ, to lay all heaven bare.

Today, though, all the sky is merely blue,
unclouded, empty, gaping, barren, dry.
Tomorrow, Lord, when Mary welcomes you,
your wonders will begin to fill our sky.

A colorful rainbow and ring-billed gull By Rhododendrites – OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=132660372

Lift My Eyes

A riff on Psalm 121:

I lift my eyes to the hills—
Where will I find my help?
Is it in racking up my kills,
Is it in mortar shells?

No, I will not rely
on gun or sword or stone.
Though fighter jets dissect the sky,
my help is God alone.

You stand upon the heights
to scout my every move;
though you may have me in your sights,
God has me in his love.

I crawl as low, as deep
as mountain peaks are high:
The God who watches will not sleep,
and will not shut his eyes.

The sunlight will not strike,
nor yet the light of the moon.
Your bullets will be turned aside—
or I will meet them soon,

and it will be my blood
that stains the place I stand.
And on the hills or in the mud,
we both are in his hand.

Even if I should die,
I will not strike you down.
But even so, I lift my eyes:
The hills can't help me now.

Albert Bierstadt – Among the Sierra Nevada, California – Google Art Project – IQE1CY9y_Rfy5A — Google Arts & Culture, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22007259

Burning Yet

Jesus took Peter, John, and James
and went up the mountain to pray.
While he was praying his face changed in appearance
and his clothing became dazzling white.
And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah,
who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus
that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.
Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep,
but becoming fully awake,
they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.
—Luke 9:28b-36

I've walked the valley, and I've climbed the mountain
to chase the hints and glimpses of your face,
and still do I believe I'll see your bounty
here in this place.

But it's a hard road, this land of the living,
and I a stone that rolls along its tracks—
compassionate as stone and as forgiving
until it cracks.

I break and seek you still through all my days here—
how rarely is my way lit by a spark!
Where is the light that guides me toward salvation
through all the dark?

But darkness is not dark to you—I glimpse it
in moments when I cannot trust my sense,
that as I wait for night to be transfigured
it's burning yet;

that every inch of road runs over Tabor;
that every step I take is in the light
that you have hidden in a human savior,
the heart of Christ.

And my own heart, world-weary and unfeeling,
will melt into your glory when it's shown.
The light is always here: Though I can't see it,
it brings me home.

ALG169046 The Transfiguration, 1594-95 (oil on canvas) by Carracci, Lodovico (1555-1619) oil on canvas 438×268 Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, Italy Alinari Italian, out of copyright

Lodovico Carracci, 1594- http://www.valtorta.org/the_transfiguration_defaultpage.asp, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8768456