Threads

When this which is corruptible clothes itself with incorruptibility
and this which is mortal clothes itself with immortality,
then the word that is written shall come about:
            Death is swallowed up in victory.
                        Where, O death, is your victory?
                        Where, O death, is your sting?
—I Corinthians 15:54-58

I will wear out like a garment,
growing tattered, getting torn.
Though, my God, you spun and carded,
wove my threads ere I was born,
yet your work shall come unravelled,
picked apart by careless hands,
stained by everywhere I've travelled
as I seek the promised land.

Take and wash me, smudged and spotted,
in your everflowing stream.
When you draw me from the water,
then at last I will be clean.
But you will not patch these tatters
when this cloak is all worn through,
piecing fullness where I'm ragged—
You will weave my threads anew.

I am meager; I am mortal,
quickly worn out in the strife.
Clothe me then in what's immortal,
and I'll enter into life.
Death is swallowed up in vict'ry,
in the shroud of Christ the Son.
I am sewn into your myst'ry,
in the seamless life you've spun.

Weaver, Nürnberg, c. 1425 By Anonymous – Hausbuch der Mendelschen Zwölfbrüderstiftung, Band 1. Nürnberg 1426–1549. Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg, Amb. 317.2°, via http://www.nuernberger-hausbuecher.de/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13129819

Kings of Earth

Riffing on Psalm 33:

Kings of earth call up their armies;
warriors sharpen spear and sword.
God moves earth and sea, disarming;
empires fall before the Lord.

Let the heart still hold its secrets;
let the plotting mind still plan.
God who made them holds their seasons;
they shall not extend their span.

Human strength avails us nothing:
Chariots sink into the sea;
weapons crumble, scarred and rusted;
all our tow'rs shall toppled be.

What will last? The stars o'erreaching.
What goes on? The ocean waves.
What stands firm? The earth beneath us,
while our mortal dust decays.

Even these shall cease their turning,
falling into entropy,
yet shall God in endless mercy
make his children still to be.

Kings and princes plot their vengeance
sinking in oblivion.
Still in God our hope is endless:
Mercy flows forever on.

Discarded and Forgotten, in DüsseldorfBy marsupium photography – https://www.flickr.com/photos/hagdorned/9291943561/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57468833

Same

A table song for enemies:

O Christ, the Son of God,
have mercy on us all.
Alike you drew us from the mud;
alike to death we fall.

And all alike we sin:
Before your gaze we stand,
marked by the blood of kith and kin,
with weapons in our hands.

Have mercy on us, Lord,
who all alike are lost,
and teach us to lay down our swords
and take, each one, our cross.

To follow where you led,
not just to Calvary,
but sitting where you broke the bread
to feed your enemy.

For we are all still dust,
in triumph or in shame;
as one we share an equal thirst.
Our hunger is the same.

Then let us break your bread
and share in it as one.
As one by mercy we are fed,
within your kingdom come.

Last Supper. Russian icon By Anonimous – http://www.sedmitza.ru/ index.html?did=32500, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3071693

As a Sparrow Finds Its Shelter

“The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me in comparison with that time which is unknown to us like the swift flight of a sparrow through the mead-hall where you sit at supper in winter, with your Ealdormen and thanes, while the fire blazes in the midst and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest, but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter to winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.”
St. Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People

As a sparrow finds its shelter
from the raging storm outside
here amid the smoke and rafters,
guided by the fire's light,
yet it rests for but a moment—
for a moment and no more—
ere it flies out through the doorway,
from the storm into the storm,

so we all are born as sparrows,
come to light from the unknown,
and our moments fly as arrows.
Swiftly, swiftly, we are gone.
For the night outside still beckons
in the howling of the storm
with a sound that can't be reckoned:
Into dark, we fly once more.

God of light and God of shadows,
master of the shining hall,
plant this firelight in your sparrows
when we heed the stormwind's call.
When we fly from sound and fury
to the broad, unbounded night,
guide us on the homeward journey:
God of sparrows, give us light.

Venerable Bede in an illustrated manuscript, writing his Ecclesiastical History of the English People By http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/bke/0047/1v – http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/bke/0047/1v, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77974574

If I Have Words

If I have words, they'll silent fall;
if I have deeds, they'll crack and rust.
If I have love, then I have all,
though all I love will come to dust.

The morning light that is my hope
will blaze to noon and fade to night.
The darkness where you hold me close
will fall in time to morning's light.

But there will come unfading day,
and there will come unyielding night,
and we will see you face to face
when night and day are shining bright.

Until they come, no more to pass,
you, Lord, alone are permanent.
So while we fade, let us hold fast
to love outshining firmaments.

That by its guiding star, we walk,
and when it's hidden, still we hope;
that in the day or in the dark
we have a way; we have a home.

We spring up as the grasses here
and fade away ere evening comes,
but over us one star shines clear,
and we will blossom where it burns.

A 45-minute exposure photo of stars around Polaris, taken at Ehrenburg (Franconia, Germany), September 8, 2001 By Udo Kügel – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=929549

Now Weep For Sorrow, O My Soul

“But woe to you who are rich,
                        for you have received your consolation.
            Woe to you who are filled now,
                        for you will be hungry.
            Woe to you who laugh now,
                        for you will grieve and weep.
            Woe to you when all speak well of you,
                        for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.”
Luke 6:20-26

Now weep for sorrow, O my soul,
and tremble, you who have been filled,
for I will lose my grasp on gold
and nothing answers to my will.

If I have laughed, I still shall weep;
if I am loved, the world will turn.
There is no promise I can keep,
no certain hope that I can earn.

Then come, O Lord, and take my hands:
Unwind my fingers from their grasp,
for someday I must empty stand
with nothing but your hand to clasp.

And all the mercies you have sent
of love and life, I do not scorn,
but let me hold them lightly yet
that from my hands shall yet be drawn.

Whatever you shall send me then,
still stand beside me to receive,
if I before the storm must bend
or stand again in its reprieve.

As naked as I was at birth,
unshielded into death I'll go,
and all I hold upon this earth
I thank you for and watch it go.

Beatitudes, Russian Orthodox Icon (detail) By unknown, originally uploaded by User:Alex Bakharev – http://www.belygorod.ru/img2/Ikona/Used/0IkonaZapovediBlazhenGIM.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4186105

The Gift

Through you, my Christ, all things were made:
You caused the very dust,
paved it with grasses' fragile blades,
and out of it dug us.

We came to be at your command,
set stirring by your breath.
All that we have is from your hand,
all things except our death.

All else is yours already, Lord;
we've nothing of our own
except the keen edge of the sword,
the blunt force of the stone.

The bitten apple taught us these,
and on their wings we fly.
The makers of mortalities,
we tempted you to try:

“If you would claim us for yourself
and truly rule in all,
come down, O God, to taste our death
and plummet through our fall.”

So, wonder of all worlds, you did.
You stooped, as falcons dive:
in mortal flesh your godhead hid,
your spirit bound in gyves.

You took the gift we offered you—
no mortal can say how.
You made our only making new,
and at your name we bow

for you, O Son of God, you died
and broke what we had graved.
The sword has keened; the stones have cried,
for you our death have braved.

Adam and Eve, 1920, By Franz Von Stuck – Franz Von Stuck, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23032696

O Holy Wind

You formed our bodies from the dust
and blew your Spirit into clay.
This wind that hovers over us
will someday blow our dust away.

We labor for our daily bread
but cannot purchase one more day.
No matter how we're dressed and fed,
this desert wind blows us away.

O Holy Wind that sweeps us up
and carries us to desert sand,
help us to know that we are dust,
but still God holds us in his hand.

We do not live by bread alone,
but every sacred word you say.
Come help us to be more your own
before the wind blows us away.

We wait for the accepted time--
this is the hour and this the day
to lift our voice--Oh, hear our cry
before the wind blows us away!