Miriam – Kate Bluett

The chains that long did bind us are broken, hanging slack. The night that now should blind us by fire is driven back. The foes who sought to find us and lost within the wrack. The waters close behind us and cover o'er our track. The hardened heart of violence must someday softened be, or drown itself in silence, bound to death's slavery. The Lord of glory triumphs and casts into the sea the envious defiance that would not set us free! Sing out, you sons and daughters, the freedom you have found! Sing out the end of slaughter, the mercy that abounds! For God brought down the plotters more deep than plummet sounds: We passed through raging waters, and yet we did not drown!

Two more figures from the Old Testament, looking beyond their own lifetimes to promises we’re all waiting for.

Moses

  It is enough, oh Lord, enough to look,
  enough to scale a height and see a dream,
  enough for that young shepherd that you took,
  that angry prince, not to be what he'd been.
  Enough to see the sea stand up and part
  and make dry land where fish had held their sway,
  or, in the desert, streams from dry stone start,
  and wand'ring fires that made the night as day.
            You have shown me so much, I need no more
            to leave this life behind and be content,
            yet there is one thing I still want to see,
            one promise, Lord, that you have left in store:
            the face I've glimpsed within the meeting tent,
            the land where he will reign eternally.

By Sailko – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49066369
Yahweh (God) shows Moses the Promised Land (Frans Pourbus the Elder, c. 1565–80)

 Miriam

 There is another sea to cross,
 another song to sing
 beyond the desert years of loss
 and all the griefs they bring,
 one wave where we must still be tossed,
 while to hope's spar we cling.
 Alleluia!
 
 One Egypt lost, another gained:
 One sea keeps them apart.
 One Pharaoh drowned, another reigned
 over us from the start.
 One freedom won, ourselves we chained
 with shackles in our heart.
 Alleluia!
  
 One final pasch shall set us free,
 one river yet of blood
 shall usher in a jubilee
 when cresting in its flood.
 Among its flotsam and debris
 will bloom a single bud.
 Alleluia!
  
 And from that stem, a tide of green
 the desert shall transform.
 From these floodwaters, dry and clean
 we rise again, reborn,
 and take in hand the tambourine
 and harp, and drum, and horn.
 Alleluia!

Tag: Miriam

Miriam’s Song

Moses & Miriam