We Wonder Still

Many years since, 

we wonder still

to a rough barn,

past hills and fields

through city streets

long cold and dark,

to a small child

born for us, for

light and life, that

by this love come

down, dawn will sing!

Worship: Ontological; Interpersonal; Aesthetic

There are instructional or didactic elements in worship. For example, the recitation of a creed in Morning Prayer or in the Eucharist is partly instructional. Yet worship is not fundamentally or principally didactic in nature and purpose. Worship is ontological, interpersonal, and aesthetic. Worship expresses and shapes our being as creatures in the image of God, our relationships with God and our neighbor, and our sense of the sublime and desirable. Worship involves and informs our whole being, individual and corporate, in truth, beauty, and goodness; in faith, hope, and love. The forms and substance of worship, the rites and ceremonies, ought to reflect and enact this multi-dimensional endeavor.

With Sighs Too Deep for Words

St. Paul writes in his letter to the Christians in Rome (ch. 8, v. 26; NRSV), “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” For those who can speak aloud and clearly, there are times, there are things, when and for which we find no words. We have vague or inchoate thoughts and feelings, and we cannot express to another what moves in head and heart. We may not even be able to articulate them within our own soul. Here, the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. Yet for those who simply and ever cannot speak aloud and clearly, how much more do articulation, expression, communication, fail them? Perhaps they do have the words in head and heart, but they cannot physically voice them. Perhaps, more profoundly, thoughts and feelings lie beyond articulation, even within head and heart. How much more for them, the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. So we hope and pray.

On Hearing Certain Music

Though eye does not —
at sigh of strings,
their rise and fall
in time and place,
as life, as love —
let weep the heart.

To Leap and to Praise

To leap and to praise

those who are lame and

those who are mute

touched by Life, by Love

broken with them

given for them

those who are lame and

those who are mute

to leap and to praise

glory to God, glory to all

blessing and glory

world without end

Come, Lord, Lowly and Plain

Come, Lord, come; lowly and plain. Dwell with those who live in the dead-ends of cities and towns; in the by-ways of valleys and hills. Be friend and kin where need is great; tender with words and hands in love, in hope. Come, Lord, now; lowly and plain.

For Faith, Hope, and Love to Meet Our Days

Most merciful God, creator and redeemer of all: to a world wracked with pain and loss, you came in Jesus to take our suffering into your heart, there to bear and heal it. Tender your Spirit in our hearts, that we who groan and weep, for ourselves and others, may find faith, hope, and love to meet our days. Now and in the end, wipe away our tears, our sorrows, in life made new and whole, that grief and death will be no more. Amen.

A Commonwealth of Care

We come into life not by self circumstance and act but by circumstance and act of others. We are not born to be dependent, yet we are born dependent. I was born dependent. The person next to me was born dependent, as was the person far from me. On whom do I depend? On whom do they depend? On each of us. On all of us. Hence, we are born to care, to care for each of us, for all of us. We come into life not facing self but facing another, needing another, to care for one another. From beginning to end, we are born to live in a commonwealth of care. And so we should.