With the dawn of Advent and a new church year this coming weekend, we are launching a new feature on our website, a weekly post of poetry that resonates with the lectionary readings for that week (Revised Common Lectionary).
*** Revised Common Lectionary ***
Lectionary Reading: James 5:7-10
CLASSIC POEM:
Patience, Hard Thing!
Gerard Manley Hopkins
PATIENCE, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray,
But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks;
To do without, take tosses, and obey.
Rare patience roots in these, and, these away,
Nowhere. Natural heart’s ivy, Patience masks
Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks
Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day.
We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills
To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills
Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.
And where is he who more and more distils
Delicious kindness?—He is patient. Patience fills
His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.
*** This poem is in the public domain,
and may be read in a live-streamed worship service.
CONTEMPORARY POEM:
Whatever is Foreseen in Joy
Wendell Berry
Found In:
This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems
SNIPPET:
And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we’re asleep.
…
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