Fountain

“Behold, I am coming soon.
I bring with me the recompense I will give to each
according to his deeds.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last,
the beginning and the end.”…
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
Let the hearer say, “Come.”
Let the one who thirsts come forward,
and the one who wants it receive the gift of life-giving water.
The one who gives this testimony says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!
—Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20

The Alpha and Omega;
beginning and the end;
the sea, the stream, the wellspring;
the first and last Amen—

You flow from love unbounded
and unto love return,
the one life-giving fountain.
O, quench a world that burns!

Let him who thirsts come forward;
let him who wants draw near,
for you have promised torrents
to wash away our tears.

For you have promised rivers
to make the deserts bloom:
Their currents flow forever
out of an empty tomb!

Give us the living water
still welling from your side.
Transform your sons and daughters
to make of us your bride

and plunge us in that ocean
that moves not by the moon
but by your heartbeat's motion—
And, oh, come soon! Come soon!

Fountains of St. Peter’s Square by Carlo Maderno (1614) and Bernini (1677), Photo By Lucaok – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2549085

Living Waters

From spring to river streams will go,
and rivers to the sea,
and when the living waters flow,
Lord, let them rise in me.

For I have thirsted these long days
while fountains run no more,
and now bone-dry I wait for pain—
Somewhere your waters pour.

Like sentinels await the dawn,
I wait for clouded skies,
for rivers rolling ever on,
for fallen waves to rise,

for creeks to laugh until they weep,
for cataracts to shout.
I know that deep calls out to deep
while I sit here in drought.

But you, who closed in doors the sea,
set hills not to be moved,
if you have closed these doors in me,
Lord, let me call it good.

Is this the fasting that you wish?
Not to my name but yours 
be all the glory, even if
the waters never pour.

Niagara Falls, from the American Side (Frederic Edwin Church, 1867) – qQE5jAFm16XHjQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21865696

Cups

“Hear me, all of you, and understand.
Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person;
but the things that come out from within are what defile.
From within people, from their hearts,
come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,
adultery, greed, malice, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within and they defile.”
—Mark 7:21-23

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.
Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.”
—Matthew 23:25-26

I come to you so hungry, Lord,
so thirsty I have come
for wine that only you can pour
like honey on my tongue.
But how can I sit down with you
when I am all unclean
to take your drink and taste your food,
pretending I'm pristine?

But you are living water, true,
and I an empty cup.
If I would taste a drop of you
then you must fill me up—
but cups, they must be purified
before they can be filled.
You see the things I hold inside—
how shall a drop be spilled?

Yet pour your waters over me
and pour them through my heart
and I shall have your purity
in every inward part.
Then shall my overflow be love
that water once had been.
You clean the inside of the cup—
and wine flows from within.

The Holy Grail depicted on a stained glass window at Quimper Cathedral Photo By Thesupermat – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35772669

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

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

A Place of Springs

Inspired by this image, “Mary, Mother of Flint,” and drawing on Psalm 46 (“there is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God”), John 4 (“The water I give will become a spring in him welling up to eternal life”), and Ezekiel’s vision of a stream running from under the Temple (Ezekiel 47).

All streams must have their sources,
their springs where rivers start:
This is the stream that courses
through every human heart.

The thorn-crowned son of Mary,
the blood that brings new life,
the streams within us carry
in spite of hate or strife.

A wondrous river flowing
to make the bitter sweet,
its grace and peace bestowing
in every city street.

Oh, spring of life eternal,
refresh our hearts today
and bear us on our journey
to see your face, we pray.

To see not fear or danger
but Christ, the Son of Man,
in all, both friend and stranger;
to love as you command.

And Mary, holy wellspring,
come, show to us your son
and help us see our true king,
the Christ, in everyone!

Come, every son or daughter,
all forms of human kin:
Whoever drinks this water
shall never thirst again!