Psalm 51: Wash Me

Have mercy on me, God, as you are holy.
Have mercy, Lord, for you are merciful.
Though I have wandered far from my own soul now,
you are yourself, a well forever full.

Have mercy, though I walk in my transgressions
and, feasting, fill my mouth with sand and dust.
I dream of rain and wake to find a desert:
If this is water, why do I still thirst?

A heart of stone can live on dust and ashes;
create a heart for me of flesh and blood
that feels the fear of loss and sting of gladness.
Renew me, and my barren shoots will bud.

You are the only sea: Fill this dry streambed.
You are the rain: Then quench these thirsting bones.
Let floods destroy my shame and self-deceiving.
The record of my sin make blank as snow.

Lord, open up my lips to taste your waters,
and in between the sips I'll sing your praise.
This desert that I built I will not offer,
but let this beating heart be yours always.

Self Made: Shot in Chicago in the parking lot of the Century Shopping Center on April 15, 2007 By Victorgrigas at English Wikipedia – Own work: Originally from en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2148320

Ash Wednesday

Now is the desert yawning

where you have led our steps;

now is the dim-lit dawning

showing the days far-spent.



Oh, could I tear my garments,

could some repentance show!

How can I rend what's hardened?

How can I mend this stone?



Teach me to count the moments,

each one a fading breath:

Finite I then shall know them,

reckon the days 'til death.



Visit me, Lord, in secret.

Though my left hand is blind,

all of my sins, you see them:

See where I would go right.



Teach me to know me guilty;

show me my hidden schemes.

Wash me then with your hyssop;

clease me, and I am clean.



Bring me through fire and water,

long though the road may be.

Make us a way, O Father:

Make all our stone hearts beat.

More details

Ash Wednesday by Carl Spitzweg: the end of Carnival

By Carl Spitzweg – 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=159077

Broken Cisterns 2

A re-write of this:

We set out for our Edens;

we thought we knew the way,

but shimmers in the distance

have tempted us to stray.

Still, Lord, we were insistent

that you would bless our days:

We dug these broken cisterns,

then knelt and prayed for rain.



You opened up the heavens,

poured water through our hands,

but all that we collected

ran off into the sands.

We thought that you would bless us

and sanctify our plans,

but, God, our wells are empty,

and thirsty still we stand.



But you know well the desert--

through forty days and nights

you let yourself be tempted.

You know our tears and sighs.

And you have felt our yearnings,

our hungers and our drives--

then may we feel your mercy.

O Mercy, hear our cry!



Take all our broken cisterns

and make them sound and whole.

Our locust-eaten vistas

in you can be restored.

Our empty wells transfigure;

redeem our hungry souls

to hold the good you've given:
Pour out your grace once more!

Broken Cisterns

Two evils my people have done:
they have forsaken me, the source of living waters;
They have dug themselves cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Jeremiah 2:13

We walked the desert distance

in search of welcome lands,

but dug these broken cisterns,

like graves, with our own hands.

We chased our own insistence

that shimmered on the sands:

Now we are trapped and twisted

in thirst that never ends.



Make haste, O loving Father,

to seek us ere we die,

your wayward sons and daughters

who flee your gentle eye.

We turned from what you offered,

yet, Mercy, hear our cry:

Pour out your living water,

for, oh! our hearts are dry!



Though what we dug was broken,

yet you can make it whole;

the years lost to the locust

in you can be restored.

Redeem our slipshod workings;

our wasted days transform:

Let them, too, hold your goodness:

Pour out your grace, O Lord!

Remains of a Nabataean cistern north of Makhtesh Ramon, southern IsraelBy Wilson44691 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18792763

Stones and Water

Bring back your sons from afar,
daughters from all the earth's corners:
Draw us again to your heart;
give us new hearts for our stone ones.

We have been exiles so long,
dreaming each moment of Eden,
though we've forgotten its songs,
choked with the dust we're still eating.

Trying to make bread from stones—
stones were the seeds we had planted—
ground into dust with our bones,
dust is now all we are granted.

Pour the rains on us again:
Dust becomes mud becomes garden;
rivers of blood in our veins
pump through the ground we had hardened.

Flood all the waste with your streams;
lead us by spring and oasis
not back again to our dreams,
but to the new things you're making!

Lead where we've never yet gone,
not where the river first rises
but to the sea as its runs:
Mercy alone satisfies us!

A stream in Teesdale. By Mentifisto – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8646124

You Have Led Me Through the Desert

The people struck their tents to cross the Jordan,
with the priests carrying the ark of the covenant ahead of them.
No sooner had these priestly bearers of the ark
waded into the waters at the edge of the Jordan,
which overflows all its banks
during the entire season of the harvest,
than the waters flowing from upstream halted,
backing up in a solid mass for a very great distance indeed,
from Adam, a city in the direction of Zarethan;
while those flowing downstream toward the Salt Sea of the Arabah
disappeared entirely.
Thus the people crossed over opposite Jericho.
While all Israel crossed over on dry ground,
the priests carrying the ark of the covenant of the LORD
remained motionless on dry ground in the bed of the Jordan
until the whole nation had completed the passage.
Joshua 3: 13-17

To the tune NETTLETON.

You have led me through the desert;
you have held me through the years.
Every step, you have been present;
when I sought you, ever near.
When I strayed, you still were faithful;
when I fell, you, too, sank down,
not in wrath and not in failure,
but to lift me from the ground.

Lead me ever in your mercy,
through the day and through the dark.
Through my hunger and my thirsting,
show me yet your guiding spark.
If I never see your glory,
never reach the promised land,
if all other go before me,
still you have me in your hand.

When you lead me to the Jordan,
when you roll the river back,
give me courage for the journey
as you've given all I lack.
Let me trust again your goodness
and the wonders you have shown
still to bring me to the fullness
of the mercy I have known.

*Joshua and the Israelites crossing the Jordan* (Gustave Doré) Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=298035

Be My Rock

Lord, I have seen the barren rock
break open with a living spring,
and raised a cry of joy and shock
to see the desert turning green.

Then why, why do I turn aside
when barren ground surrounds my road?
When deserts stretch out, yawning wide,
why do I fear and lose my hope?

I know too well not every stone
bears in its heart the springs of joy.
Beside those rocks I stand alone,
and all my pleading is but noise.

But still, the road before my feet 
turns neither to the left nor right.
What comfort can I hope to meet
beneath this sky's relentless light?

Be for me, saving Christ, the rock
that rises in a weary land.
Give me a shadow, cool and dark,
to shelter in from sunlit sand.

And there, if I have found you, Lord,
if I have followed you at all,
the river of your mercy pour,
the rain of comfort on me fall!

Moses striking water from the rock By Jacob Willemsz de Wet – cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63661840

O Living Spring

 As empty rivers wait for rain,
 as burning deserts wait for dark,
 as winter waits for spring again,
 I wait to meet you in my heart.
  
 You sought each bare, deserted spot
 to be your refuge from the day;
 so I seek you, O Son of God,
 and offer you a place to stay.
  
 The wind about it keens and howls—
 the driven ragings of my mind—
 but still, as bare as Satan's vows,
 my heart could be your home and mine.
  
 Oh, come to this deserted place
 and make of it a place of springs
 where every drop reflects you face
 and every breeze for wonder sings!
 
 You came as man, as dust from dust,
 and so mere dust you glorified.
 My barren ground cried out its thirst:
O Living Spring, break forth inside!

Flash flood in the Gobi By Qfl247 (talk) – I (Qfl247 (talk)) created this work entirely by myself., GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8831121

You Bid the Sky

The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert,
and he remained in the desert for forty days,
tempted by Satan.
He was among wild beasts,
and the angels ministered to him.
Mark 1:12-15

For today’s readings, which range from Noah in the Flood to Jesus in the Desert:

 You bid the sky bring forth its birds,
 the earth its creeping, coursing beasts,
 with no more force than of your words.
 You gave them riches for their feasts.
  
 You set your bow among the clouds,
 a vow to every living thing
 that never more would floods drown out
 the world of voices meant to sing.
  
 And then—oh, wonder more than all!—
 you came in flesh made like their own,
 that creatures made but by your call
 might feel your touch in flesh and bone.
  
 Then in the desert, far from floods,
 you dwelt sun-drenched among the wild,
 preparing heart and soul and blood
 for years of toil and days of trial.
  
 Not as the hunter, proud and strong,
 but humble, hidden well as prey,
 you left your bow and journeyed on
 to meet your dreadful, final day.
  
 O Christ, who bore destruction here
 as mortal as the meanest beast,
 teach us to join you without fear
 in death and in your heav'nly feast.

An Islamic depiction of Noah in a 16th-century Mughal miniature. Photo By Miskin – http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/singleObject.cfm?ObjectNumber=F1948.8, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22271952

Our Hearts Are Sinful

One for Ash Wednesday and Lent, to the tune ERHALT UNS, HERR (“The Glory of These Forty Days”):

 Our hearts are sinful, stained with blood;
 our spirits in their anguish torn;
 our bodies little more than mud—
 O God, will you leave us forlorn?

There is no water in this world
 can wash our hearts and make them pure.
 Our souls into the depths are hurled;
 is there no hope?  Is there no cure?

Ah, no!  There is the Lord of hosts
 who braves temptation's lonely hour
 to silence all the tempter's boasts
 and bend himself to serve God's pow'r.

Call water from the rock, O Christ,
 to wash our hearts and make them clean
 that we may make a sacrifice;
 our contrite spirits we will bring.
  
 Accept, O Father, this poor gift
 that you gave us at our first dawn.
 Our wounded hearts and souls we lift
 made whole again by Christ, your Son.
  
 O Spirit, flame that burns to ash
 all sin and stain, all soil and strife,
 come guide the hearts that Christ has washed
 and lead us on to share his life.