"Psalm for the January Thaw," by Lucy Shaw

Blessed be God for thaw, for the clear drops
that fall, one by one, like clocks ticking, from
the icicles along the eaves. For shift and shrinkage,
including the soggy gray mess on the deck
like an abandoned mattress that has
lost its inner spring. For the gurgle
of gutters, for snow melting underfoot when I
step off the porch. For slush. For the glisten
on the sidewalk that only wets the foot sole
and doesn’t send me slithering. Everything
is alert to this melting, the slow flow of it,
the declaration of intent, the liquidation.

Glory be to God for changes. For bulbs
breaking the darkness with their green beaks.
For moles and moths and velvet green moss
waiting to fill the driveway cracks. For the way
the sun pierces the window minutes earlier each day.
For earthquakes and tectonic plates—earth’s bump
and grind—and new mountains pushing up
like teeth in a one-year-old. For melodrama—
lightning on the sky stage, and the burst of applause
that follows. Praise him for day and night, and light
switches by the door. For seasons, for cycles
and bicycles, for whales and waterspouts,
for watersheds and waterfalls and waking
and the letter W, for the waxing and waning
of weather so that we never get complacent. For all
the world, and for the way it twirls on its axis
like an exotic dancer. For the north pole and the
south pole and the equator and everything between.

"Advent," by Thomas Merton

Charm with your stainlessness these winter nights,
Skies, and be perfect!
Fly vivider in the fiery dark, you quiet meteors,
And disappear.
You moon, be slow to go down,
This is your full!

The four white roads make off in silence
Towards the four parts of the starry universe.
Time falls like manna at the corners of the wintry earth.
We have become more humble than the rocks,
More wakeful than the patient hills.

Charm with your stainlessness these nights in Advent, holy spheres,
While minds, as meek as beasts,
Stay close at home in the sweet hay;
And intellects are quieter than the flocks that feed by starlight.

Oh pour your darkness and your brightness over all our solemn valleys,
You skies: and travel like the gentle Virgin,
Toward the planets' stately setting,

Oh white full moon as quiet as Bethlehem!

If His Were the Only Tree (poem)

in the Garden
if they must forthwith still
taste of some tree
in search

of knowledge of

good
and evil, then let
them eat of my Son

the Fruit of the tree of Jesse
from whom He depends, ever
for their desire

because

He let Himself be hung there
as if out to dry
so that they
might later partake
of His dehydrated body
and
His unleavened blood
so as to have

the Knowledge

of Whom
it thenceforth hath been said
He is

the Apple of His Father's eye

by Carl Winderl

An Introduction to, and "Straddling" Itself (poem)

This past weekend, I was grateful to have the chance to visit Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana. I was there for several reasons: to check out the school, which offers a program in writing and ministry, to participate in ESR's annual Writer's Colloquium, which this year featured the inspiring Quaker singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer, and to see my friend Dylan. Dylan, whom I've known since high school, is a student at Bethany Seminary, ESR's sister school.

During the last session of the writer's colloquium, we read the poem "Possibilities" by Wislawa Szymborska, and were asked to write a poem modeled after Szymborska's. Here's mine.


"Straddling"

I prefer the first glance of the glory of God in the East.
I prefer cereal to oatmeal.
I prefer FOODLAND.
I prefer a whiskey sky.
I prefer offbeat picking with the rare strum.
I prefer whistling and humming, both.
I prefer waiting worship.
I prefer singing into or out of silence.
I prefer sleeping on Dylan's couch, and the couch in the Indianapolis International Airport, and the couch in the Redemption House.
I prefer wearing my scarf on a special occasion, such as being stranded again.
I prefer writing a daydream.
I prefer the kitchen.
I prefer being baptized in Mission Bay by Pastors Steve and Preston.
I prefer not singing, sometimes, when others are singing.
I prefer harmonizing, although when singing hymns I usually sing melody.
I prefer being alone.
I prefer being with people.
I prefer being alone with people.
I prefer being with everyone when alone or when with people.
I prefer onions.

For I will consider Smart's Cat Jeoffry. (song)

Last Friday, during youth group, one of the youths asked a question about what heaven will be like for animals such as cats or dogs. Although we couldn't answer him for sure, Brian shared what he's been learning about how God created each animal to worship God in its own way. For instance, while a bird is singing or soaring or eating worms, it is worshiping God because it is being what God created it to be.

That reminded me of a song I sang freshman year with PLNU's Choral Union. The song, "Rejoice in the Lamb" by Benjamin Britten, is based on a long free verse poem by 18th-century poet Christopher Smart called "Jubilante Agno." In the poem, Smart describes how his cat Jeoffry worships God as the sun rises:

"For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness."

I remember Dr. Pedersen quoting those lines to the Choral Union, saying that by being a cat, with all of his movements, Jeoffry worshiped God, and Jeoffry's owner was making a theological statement about how we worship God: we worship as we are who we were created to be.

That raises more questions, like "Who were we created to be?" and "What are our worshipful 'movements' as God's creations?" Perhaps one way we can explore these questions is by considering the last chapter of 1 Chronicles. King David and all the leaders of the Israelites have just given to the Lord their gold, silver, bronze, turquoise, and other rich resources for the construction of the temple. Then, in verse 16, King David prays, "O LORD our God, as for all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy Name, it comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you." King David recognizes that all of who we are, all that we own and have, comes from God, and belongs to God. Indeed, the whole heavens and earth belong to God, for he created them.

I wonder if we become closer to who we were created to be, and if we worship God when we realize that we--with all our dreams and memories and thoughts and words and strength and resources and everything else about us--come from God, and that we belong to God. The things we do during our day, like going to school or work or resting or laughing or weeping, we do because God has given us our job or the gift of going to school or the time to rest or the capacity to understand humor and feel emotion. And we worship God when we give to him all of the wonder and pain that come with those experiences, turning them into prayers.

As I consider Smart's cat Jeoffry, and how he worships God when the sun rises through the movements of his body, I ask myself, how can I too worship God? Like Jeoffry, I desire to worship God, giving him all that he has given me and created me to be, and recognizing that I and all the things inside of me and attached to me belong to him.