Category: church

I’ll Sing and Joyful Be: In Brokenness and Need

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Suddenly I knew,
when we stood in a circle
holding hands;
suddenly I knew,
that because of the circle,
because of friendship,
because of love—
yes, and because of the brokenness,
and the need—
I have been
in heaven
all
my life.
~Carol Bialock “I Used to Think Heaven was Future” from Coral Castles

The church, I think, is God’s way of saying,
“What I have in the pot is yours,
and what I have is a group of misfits
whom you need more than you know
and who need you more than they know.” 

“Take, and eat,” he says,
“and take, and eat,
until the day, and it is coming,
that you knock on my door.
I will open it, and you will see me face to face.”

He is preparing a table.
He will welcome us in.
Jesus will be there, smiling and holy,
holding out a green bean casserole.
And at that moment, what we say, what we think, and what we believe will be the same:
“I didn’t know how badly I needed this.”
~Jeremy Clive Huggins from “The Church Potluck”

…when I experienced the warm, unpretentious reception of those who have nothing to boast about, and experienced a loving embrace from people who didn’t ask any questions, I began to discover that a true spiritual homecoming means a return to the poor in spirit to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs.
~Henri Nouwen from The Return of the Prodigal Son

The journey begins when Christians leave their homes and beds. They leave, indeed, their life in this present and concrete world, and whether they have to drive 15 miles or walk a few blocks, a sacramental act is already taking place…

For they are now on their way to constitute the Church, or to be more exact, to be transformed into the Church of God. They have been individuals, some white, some black, some poor, some rich, they have been the ‘natural’ world and a natural community. And now they have been called to “come together in one place,” to bring their lives, their very world with them and to be more than what they were: a new community with a new life.

We are already far beyond the categories of common worship and prayer. The purpose of this ‘coming together’ is not simply to add a religious dimension to the natural community, to make it ‘better’ – more responsible, more Christian. The purpose is to fulfill the Church, and that means to make present the One in whom all things are at their end, and all things are at their beginning.
~ Father Alexander Schmemann from For the Life of the World

We’ve been through fire, we’ve been through pain
We’ve been refined by the power of Your name
We’ve fallen deeper in love with You
You’ve burned the truth on our lips

Rise up church with broken wings
Fill this place with songs again
Of our God who reigns on high
By his grace again we’ll fly
~Robin Mark from “Shout to the North and the South”

photo by Barb Hoelle

There is so much wrong with the modern church,
comprised as it is
of fallen people
with broken wings
determined to find flaws in each other
in doctrine, tradition, beliefs.

What is right with the church today,
is when it offers a taste of heaven for
hopeful people who come together
in sanctuary, barn and field, eucharist table and potluck,
to hold each other up in prayer
and to sing in worship
to the Three in One,
who is why we sing,
whose body we are part of
and who, in our need, loves and forgives us
despite our motley messiness:
Our Lord of Heaven and Earth.

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.
1 Corinthians 1:9-10

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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When I Was Sinking Down: Entering Empty Time

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When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
~John O’Donahue “For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing”

I know from experience that when I allow busy little doings to fill the precious time of early morning, when contemplation might flourish, I open the doors to the demon of acedia. Noon becomes a blur – no time, no time – the wolfing down of a sandwich as I listen to the morning’s phone messages and plan the afternoon’s errands.

When evening comes, I am so exhausted that vespers has become impossible. It is as if I have taken the world’s weight on my shoulders and am too greedy, and too foolish, to surrender it to God.
~Kathleen Norris from The Quotidian Mysteries

These are days with no breathing room,
no time to stop and appreciate
that each moment is a swelling bud
about to burst into bloom.

And it is my fault
that I’m not breathing deeply enough~
simply skimming the surface
in my race to the end of the day.

Time’s petals, so open, so brilliant, so eternal,
are closing up, unseen and unknown, just emptied,
without my even noticing.

Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.
 He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
Isaiah 40:28-29

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

Sing, Be, Live, See.
This dark stormy hour,
The wind, it stirs.
The scorched earth cries out in vain:
O war and power,
You blind and blur,
The torn heart cries out in pain.
But music and singing
Have been my refuge,
And music and singing
Shall be my light.
A light of song,
Shining Strong: Alleluia!
Through darkness, pain, and strife,
I’ll Sing, Be, Live, See…
Peace.

Oh, good shepherd, would you teach me how to rest
I’m rushing on, will you make me to lie down
Will you build a fold by the waters that refresh
Will you call my name and lead me safely out

From my anxious drive to labor on and on
From the restless grind that has put my mind to sleep
Will you call me back and gently slow me down
Will you show me now what to lose and what to keep

Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down
Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down

When my table’s bent with only greed and gold
And my grasping hands are afraid you won’t provide
Will you pour the wine that loosens up my hold
Set your table here with what truly satisfies

Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down
Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down

On the busy streets trying to make myself a name
If the work is yours, there is nothing I can claim
Will you lead me home to the pastures of your peace
And the house is yours, I’m sitting at your feet

Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down
Oh, good shepherd, oh, good friend
Slow me down, slow me down

Slow me down, slow me down

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When I Was Sinking Down: Every Falling Thing

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Look at the birds. Even flying
is born

out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open

at either end of day.
The work of wings
was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.
~Li-Young Lee “One Heart” from Book of My Nights

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.
We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It’s in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.
~Rainer Maria Rilke from “Autumn” translated by Robert Bly

Sometimes I wake from my sleep
with a palpitating start:
dreaming of falling,
an intense sinking down,
my body pitching and tumbling
yet somehow I land,
~oh so softly~
in my bed,
my fear quashed and cushioned by
wakening safe.

I feel caught up,
and held tightly,
rescued amid the fall.
Like leaves drifting down
from heaven’s orchard,
like wings that lift me to freedom,
the bed of earth rises to greet me
and Someone is waiting to cradle me there.

Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
Psalm 90:10

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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Choosing Joy

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Even a wounded world is feeding us.
Even a wounded world holds us,
giving us moments of wonder and joy.
I choose joy over despair. Not because
I have my head in the sand, but because
joy is what the earth gives me daily
and I must return the gift.
~Robin Wall Kimmerer from Braiding Sweetgrass

Tonight at sunset walking on the snowy road,
my shoes crunching on the frozen gravel, first

through the woods, then out into the open fields
past a couple of trailers and some pickup trucks, I stop

and look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue,
green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.

I pause in this moment at the beginning of my old age
and I say a prayer of gratitude for getting to this evening

a prayer for being here, today, now, alive
in this life, in this evening, under this sky.
~David Budbill “Winter: Tonight: Sunset” from While We’ve Still Got Feet

I try to remember this each day,
no matter how things feel,
no matter how tired or distracted I am,
no matter how worried, or fearful or heartsick–

I can grumble with the best of the them. There is camaraderie in shared grumbling, as well as an exponential increase in dissatisfaction as everyone shares their misery. Some relationships, indeed even political movements, are based on collaborative cynicism, dark humor and just plain complaining.

But I know better. I’ve seen where grousing leads and I feel it aching in my bones when I’m steeped in it. The sky is grayer, the clouds are thicker, the cold is chillier, the night is darker–on and on to its overwhelming suffocating conclusion.

I have the privilege to choose joy, to turn away from the bleak. I can find the single ray of sun and stand in it, absorbing and equipping myself to be radiant when others need it more than me. This is not putting on a “happy face” — instead joy adopts me, holds me close in the tough times and won’t abandon me. Though at times joy may be temporarily behind a cloud, I know it is there even when I can’t see it.

Joy is mine to choose because joy has chosen me, so I share it here with you – our very existence distilled down to this moment of beauty.

One breath, one blink, one pause, one whispered word: thanks.

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Whatever This Day May Bring

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O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you;
I cannot do this alone.

In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;

I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me….
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before men.
Lord whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.
Amen
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer “Prayer”

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
~Wendell Berry “To Know the Dark” from Soul Food – Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
~Mary Oliver “The Uses of Sorrow”

In the beginning, God did not banish the darkness. He balanced it with His illuminating Light. Fallen as we are, we search blindly for Him in the dark, where we need Him most. And He is there.

We are promised this: “and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light…
Revelation 22:5.

Darkness is not yet banished. But it is overcome.
Whatever this day may bring, we have a lit pathway leading us home.

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A Beginning of an Uprising

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To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.
~Karl Barth

Ah — a resting place,
where we come to understand
it is not required of us
to wrestle constantly and passionately
with our God —
nor pursue relentlessly
all God’s decrees as we understand them,
but only that we listen and wonder
and hope and pray,
that we might, perhaps,
make just a little difference,
one quiet grey day.
~Edwina Gateley “Just a Little Difference”

There is much shouting and gnashing of teeth going on in our country in the midst of a bitter “rerun” election battle ahead. Some of the noise is coming from political rallies, some from computer keyboards and TV screens, and some from the hallowed halls of courthouses and legislative buildings.

If only the nastiness could cease.
Instead, it is time to clasp hands together in prayer.

Prayer is always easier for the youngest among us.  It is amazingly spontaneous for kids — an outright exclamation of joy, a crying plea for help, a word of unprompted gratitude. As a child I can remember making up my own songs and monologues to God as I wandered alone in our farm’s woods, enjoying His company in my semi-solitude. I’m not sure when I began to silence myself out of self-conscious embarrassment, but I stayed silent for many years, unwilling to put voice to the prayers that rattled in my head. In my childhood, prayer in public schools had been hushed into a mere and meaningless moment of silence, and intuitively I knew silence never changed anything. The world became more and more disorderly in the 60’s and 70’s and in my increasingly indoctrinated mind, there was no prayer I could say that could possibly make a difference.

How wrong could I and my education be? Nothing can right the world until we are right with God through talking to Him from our depth of need and fear. Nothing can right the world until we submit ourselves wholly, bowed low, hands clasped, eyes closed, articulating the joy, the thanks, and the petitions weighing on our hearts.

An uprising is only possible when our voices come alive, unashamed, unselfconscious, rising up from within us, uttering words that beseech and thank and praise. To rise up with hands clasped together calls upon a power that claims no political party affiliation
~ only the Word ~
to overcome and overwhelm the shambles left of our world.

Nothing can be more victorious than the Amen, our Amen, at the end.

So be it and so shall it be.

Amen, and Amen again.

Whatever happens.
Whatever
what is is
is what I want.
Only that.
But that.
~Galway Kinnell “Prayer”

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A Prayer for Being Here

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Tonight at sunset walking on the snowy road,
my shoes crunching on the frozen gravel, first

through the woods, then out into the open fields
past a couple of trailers and some pickup trucks, I stop

and look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue,
green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.

I pause in this moment at the beginning of my old age
and I say a prayer of gratitude for getting to this evening

a prayer for being here, today, now, alive
in this life, in this evening, under this sky.
~David Budbill “Winter: Tonight: Sunset”

I strive to remember, each day,
no matter how things feel,
no matter how tired or distracted I am,
no matter how worried, or fearful or heartsick
over the state of the world or the state of my soul:

it is up to me to distill my gratitude
down to this one moment of beauty
that will never come again.

One breath,
one blink,
one pause,
one whispered word:
wow.

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You Can Never Be Sure

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You never know what may cause them. The sight of the ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you’ve never seen before. A pair of somebody’s old shoes can do it. Almost any movie made before the great sadness that came over the world after the Second World War, a horse cantering across a meadow…

You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next.
~Frederick Buechner from Whistling in the Dark

photo by Emily Vander Haak

I’m not paying close enough attention to the meaning of my leaking eyes if I’m constantly looking for kleenex to stem the flow. During the holidays, it seems I have more than ample opportunity to find out the secret of who I am, where I have come from, and where I am to be next.

So I keep my pockets loaded with kleenex, and there is a box ready in every room of the house.

It mostly has to do with welcoming our three children, their spouses, and six grandchildren back home for a few days to become a full-out, noisy, messy, chaotic household again. There will be puzzles and games and music and laughter and unending laundry and constant meal preparation and consumption. It is about singing grace together in five-part harmony before we eat, praying precious words of gratitude. 

It is about remembering the drama of our youngest’s birthday thirty-one years ago today, as if it were only yesterday, when her life was saved by a snowstorm. Now she and her husband bring their own son for visits back to the farm.

It certainly has to do with bidding farewell again, gathering them all in for that final hug and then letting go.

We have urged and encouraged them to go where their hearts are telling them they are needed and called to be, even if that means miles away from their one-time home on the farm. For our oldest son’s family, that means returning and settling in just down the road.

I too was let go once and though I would try to look back, too often in tears, I set my face toward the future. It led me here, to this marriage, this family, this farm, this work, our church, to more tears, to more letting go if I’m granted more years to weep again and again with gusto and grace and gravitas.

This is what I’m sure is the secret of me:
to love so much and so deeply that letting go is so hard that tears are no longer unexpected or a mystery to me or my children and grandchildren. It is a given that Grandma will weep at a drop of a hat, at a hug, or a hymn. My tears are the spill-over of fullness that can no longer be contained: God’s still small voice spills down my cheeks drop by drop like wax from a burning candle.

No kleenex are needed with these tears.

Let them flow as I let them go. It is as it should be.

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The World Holding Its Breath

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The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin b​ows are poised. The conductor has raised the baton.

In the silence of a midwinter dusk there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen.

You walk up the steps to the front door. The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing, or almost nothing. For a second you catch a whiff in the air of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart.

The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens.

Advent is the name of that moment.

The Salvation Army Santa Claus clangs his bell. The sidewalks are so crowded you can hardly move. Exhaust fumes are the chief fragrance in the air, and everybody is as bundled up against any sense of what all the fuss is really about as they are bundled up against the windchill factor.

But if you concentrate just for an instant, far off in the deeps of yourself somewhere you can feel the beating of your heart. For all its madness and lostness, not to mention your own, you can hear the world itself holding its breath.
~Frederick Buechner – originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words

What went up must come down. It isn’t just a law of physics. It is the reality of Christmas.

True, some houses have multicolored lights strung along their gutters year round, just not illuminated. And I’ve known some people’s artificial trees to stay up until Valentine’s Day or longer. But most of us dismantle what we so lovingly strung up, trimmed and decorated only a month or so ago. 

It is a sad day taking down Christmas.

As a child I was so reluctant to see the tree come down that I’d cut a sprig of evergreen branch, complete with tinsel, and would put it in a vase of water in my bedroom in order for a small part of Christmas to linger a little longer. By April it would be crispy dry and forgotten and my mother would sneak in and toss it out, without my even missing it.

All the anticipation is spent and our energy wanes. Winter has only begun and now we’re boxing up the twinkling lights and putting away the ribbons and bows. All the fun stuff is tucked away for another year in the garage and attic. Maybe we have the timing of this celebration all wrong. Instead of the Twelve Days of Christmas it should be the Twelve Weeks–the lights should stay up until St. Patrick’s Day at least, just to keep us out of the shadows and doldrums of winter.

Today, as I swept up the last of the fir needles that had dropped to the floor, I knew, like the tree that I watered faithfully in the house for three weeks, I too have been drying up and parts of me left behind for others to sweep up. There had been the excitement of family brought together from all ends of the earth, friends gathering for meals and games, special church services, but now, some quiet time is sorely needed. The party simply can’t be sustained. The lights have to go off, and the eyes have to close.

So we will now walk into a winter replete with the startling splash of orange red that paints the skies in the evenings, the stark and gorgeous snow covered peaks surrounding us during the day, the grace of bald eagles and trumpeter swans flying overhead, the heavenly lights that twinkle every night, the shining globe that circles full above us, and the loving support of the Hand that rocks us to sleep when we need it.

We don’t need full stockings on the hearth, Christmas villages on the side table, or a blinking star on the top of the tree to know the comfort of His care and the astounding beauty of His creation, available for us without batteries, electrical plug ins, or the need of a ladder.

Instead of us pulling down Christmas, Christmas pulls us up from the doldrums, alive to possibility.

Every day. Year round. And we hold our breath, listening and waiting.

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Loving the Destination Before Arrival

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Writer Luci Shaw turned 95 yesterday. A life-long poet and essayist in addition to being a wife, mother, publisher, gardener and outdoor enthusiast, Luci is a child of God who is continually living out and articulating the questions of faith, grace, and belief.

It is my privilege to know her as a neighbor in nearby Bellingham. Her books grace my shelves and I cherish her personal words of encouragement and mentoring.

Luci has gifted the world for decades with beauty and honesty, composing enriching poetic observations with heavenly anticipation.

Below is only a small sample of her work, some published as recently as two weeks ago – more of her writing and many books can be found at www.lucishaw.com.

Happy Birthday, Luci! You are beloved and blessed!

Luci Shaw -virtual presentation for Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing 2022

Last night I lay awake and practiced 
getting old. Not difficult,

but I needed to teach myself to love my destination 
before I arrive.

I feel the earth shifting under me. My writing hand 
shakes—its rubbery nudges clumsy,

my mind going slack, the way a day 
will lose its light and give itself to darkness,

and that long, nocturnal pause of inquiry— 
What next? And how long before light

reopens her blue eye? And will I need to learn 
a new language to converse with my Creator?

So, I am a questioner, one who waits, still, 
to arrive somewhere, some bright nest where

a new language breeds that I can learn to speak, 
unhindered, into heaven’s air,

somewhere I can live a long time, 
and never have to look back.
~Luci Shaw “December the 95th Year”

Luci Shaw at a Bellingham reading at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church -2017

In time of drought, let us be
thankful for this very gentle rain, 
a gift not to be disdained
though it is little and brief,
reaching no great depth, barely
kissing the leaves’ lips. Think of it as
mercy. Other minor blessings may
show up—tweezers for splinters,
change for the parking meter,
a green light at the intersection,
a cool wind that lifts away summer’s
suffocating heat. An apology after
a harsh comment. A word that opens
an unfinished poem like a key in a lock.
~Luci Shaw “Signs” from Eye of the Beholder.

Luci at a Bellingham reading of her poetry at Village Books in 2016

These still December mornings…
Outside everything’s tinted rose, grape, turquoise,
silver–the stones by the path, the skin of the sun

on the pond ice, at the night the aureola of
a pregnant moon, like me, iridescent,
almost full term with light.
~Luci Shaw from “Advent Visitation“ in Accompanied by Angels

Today, in Bellingham, even the sidewalks gleam.
Small change glints from the creases
in the lady’s mantle and the hostas after
the rain that falls, like grace, unmerited.
My pockets are full, spilling over.
~Luci Shaw from “Small Change”

I love driving in Bellingham in the spring. In spite of the chilly weather, all the fruit trees are ‘springing,’ singing themselves into being in magnificent displays of pink and white–apricot, plum, apple, peach, cherry–undiscouraged by the darkly looming clouds today. Soon each twig will display its bridal bouquet grown for this spring wedding. I know this from years of observation! Next, they’ll grow so full and heavy with blossoms they’ll be ready to throw their bouquets to the crowd, and I’ll be watching for the petals to drop like wedding confetti, filling the gutters and swirling over sidewalks with their largesse.
~Luci Shaw

Out of the shame of spittle,
the scratch of dirt,
he made an anointing.

Oh, it was an agony-the gravel
in the eye, the rude slime, the brittle
clay caked on the lid.

But with the hurt
light came leaping; in the shock and shine,
abstracts took flesh and flew;

winged words like view and space,
shape and shade and green and sky,
bird and horizon and sun,

turned real in a man’s eye.
Thus was truth given a face
and dark dispelled and healing done.
~Luci Shaw  “The Sighting” John 9 from God for Us-Rediscovering the Meaning of Lent and Easter

What next, she wonders,
with the angel disappearing, and her room
suddenly gone dark.

The loneliness of her news
possesses her. She ponders
how to tell her mother.

Still, the secret at her heart burns like
a sun rising. How to hold it in—
that which cannot be contained.

She nestles into herself, half-convinced
it was some kind of good dream,
she its visionary.

But then, part dazzled, part prescient—
she hugs her body, a pod with a seed
that will split her.
~Luci Shaw “Mary Considers Her Situation”

because we are all
betrayers, taking
silver and eating
body and blood and asking
(guilty) is it I and hearing
him say yes
it would be simple for us all
to rush out
and hang ourselves
but if we find grace
to weep and wait
after the voice of morning
has crowed in our ears
clearly enough
to break our hearts
he will be there
to ask us each again
do you love me
~Luci Shaw “Judas, Peter” from Polishing the Petoskey Stone

Down he came from up,
and in from out,
and here from there.
A long leap,
an incandescent fall
from magnificent
to naked, frail, small,
through space,
between stars,
into our chill night air,
shrunk, in infant grace,
to our damp, cramped
earthy place
among all
the shivering sheep.

And now, after all,
there he lies,
fast asleep.
~Luci Shaw “Descent” from Accompanied By Angels

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest …
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by doves’ voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies,
all years.
Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.
~Luci Shaw “Mary’s Song”