Tag: grace

Necessary

There is no necessary thing
in all that you have made—
the fletching of the finch's wing,
the dappled summer shade,
the ripples spreading in a ring
from where the herons wade—
You have no need of anything,
yet see how they're arrayed.

And if the little bird should fall,
the world, one sparrow less,
would notice none of it at all,
would suffer no distress.
But you who hear the sparrow's call
and paint its stippled dress,
who see in death its awkward sprawl,
hold it in tenderness.

I am no sparrow in your hand,
no ray of light that fell.
There is no height I can demand,
and I shall fall as well.
The only rock where I can stand
is you, my God, yourself,
who need me not—yet you command,
and in that grace I dwell.

Photo: Don Green By Channel City Camera Club from Santa Barbara, US – Stepping off, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=106054518

Show Us, O Lord, Your Mercy

Show us, O Lord, your mercy
and grant us your salvation,
as water for the thirsty,
a feast in our starvation.
For we have walked a desert
in search of your oasis.
Give us, O God, your presence
to fill our empty places.

Let justice flow like rivers,
a great unfailing fountain,
and righteousness forever,
a flood to quench the mountains.
Your endless mercy give us,
depths that defy all sounding,
the peace that is forgiveness
in our dry souls abounding.

Pour out your grace in showers,
in deluge your compassion,
to drown despair's grim power
in hope's waves ever crashing.
And let our wasteland flower,
our desert turn to pasture
not blooming just an hour,
but unto death and after.

Rain, depicted in the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle By Michel Wolgemut, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff – Self-scanned, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6723766