Benedictions for Epiphany Season

Christ the Son of God perfect in you the image of his glory
and gladden your hearts with the good news of his kingdom;
and the blessing …


Christ our Lord,
to whom kings bowed down in worship and offered gifts,
reveal to you his glory
and pour upon you the riches of his grace;
and the blessing …


May God the Father,
who led the wise men by the shining of a star
to find the Christ, the Light from light,
lead you also in your pilgrimage to find the Lord.
Amen.
May God the Son,
who turned water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana,
transform your lives and make glad your hearts.
Amen.
May God the Holy Spirit,
who came upon the beloved Son
at his baptism in the river Jordan,
pour out his gifts on you
who have come to the waters of new birth.
Amen.
And the blessing …


May God the Father,
who led the wise men by the shining of a star
to find the Christ, the Light from light,
lead you also in your pilgrimage to find the Lord.
Amen.
May God, who has delivered us from the dominion of darkness,
give us a place with the saints in light
in the kingdom of his beloved Son.
Amen.
May the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
shine in your hearts and fill your lives
with his joy and peace.
Amen.
And the blessing …

Baptism of Christ

May God, who in Christ gives us a spring of water
welling up to eternal life,
perfect in you the image of his glory;
and the blessing …


Presentation of Christ in the Temple

Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, who was wounded for our sins,
that you may bear in your life the love and joy and peace
which are the marks of Jesus in his disciples;
and the blessing …


Christ the Son of God, born of Mary,
fill you with his grace to trust his promises and obey his will;
and the blessing …

-- from the Church of England

Sestina

I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow,
to the short day and to the whitening hills,
when the colour is all lost from the grass,
though my desire will not lose its green,
so rooted is it in this hardest stone,
that speaks and feels as though it were a woman.

And likewise this heaven-born woman
stays frozen, like the snow in shadow,
and is unmoved, or moved like a stone,
by the sweet season that warms all the hills,
and makes them alter from pure white to green,
so as to clothe them with the flowers and grass.

When her head wears a crown of grass
she draws the mind from any other woman,
because she blends her gold hair with the green
so well that Amor lingers in their shadow,
he who fastens me in these low hills,
more certainly than lime fastens stone.

Her beauty has more virtue than rare stone.
The wound she gives cannot be healed with grass,
since I have travelled, through the plains and hills,
to find my release from such a woman,
yet from her light had never a shadow
thrown on me, by hill, wall, or leaves' green.

I have seen her walk all dressed in green,
so formed she would have sparked love in a stone,
that love I bear for her very shadow,
so that I wished her, in those fields of grass,
as much in love as ever yet was woman,
closed around by all the highest hills.

The rivers will flow upwards to the hills
before this wood, that is so soft and green,
takes fire, as might ever lovely woman,
for me, who would choose to sleep on stone,
all my life, and go eating grass,
only to gaze at where her clothes cast shadow.

Whenever the hills cast blackest shadow,
with her sweet green, the lovely woman
hides it, as a man hides stone in grass.

--Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet, writer, and philosopher, one of the greatest poets who ever lived

Forage Sestina

This is for your body hidden in words
moving through a crumbling structure.
Between heaps of plaster, chicken-wire
snaggles the gaping floor. Stripped of beams,
cement encloses more cement. A wall
mounds up between parlor and dining-room.

Explicit shadows grapple through the room
which is a ruined city. Falling words
erode veined gullies in the nearer wall.
This is to see if only structure
communicates. Under a beam
an outlet spouts tongues of stripped wire

and you breath crackles like a shorted wire.
You are standing behind me, even in this room
which is a camouflage. Signal beams
flash through the casement, and our words
cadence them, shushed with light, making a structure
of light and sound bouncing off the bare wall.

I want to touch you, but you are the wall
crumbling, the report over the wire
service that there were no survivors. Structure
demands that we remain inside the room,
that you cannot be hedged in easy words
like skin or hands, that we cannot look through the beams

of the burnt roof and see stars. All the beams
were hauled off. Concrete floor, ceiling, walls
surround us. There is one window. Words
cannot be trusted. Capillaries wire
swiveling eyes. If we search this room
we may be able to plot out the structure

of the whole building. We were told that the structure
is flawed, that the searchlight beam
from the bridge pierces cracks. If the room
begins to rotate, floor becoming wall
et cetera, and white sparks dribble from torn wires,
there has been a rebellion of words.

Words will peel off you, revealing the structure
of a human body branched with wires. Over the last beam
keeping the sky from the walls, vines drip into the room.

--Marilyn Hacker (1942- ), American formalist poet, feminist, editor

Six Words

yes

no

maybe

sometimes

always

never 

Never? 

Yes. 

Always? 

No. 

Sometimes? 

Maybe— 

maybe 

never 

sometimes. 

Yes— 

no 

always: 

always 

maybe. 

No— 

never 

yes.

Sometimes, 

sometimes 

(always) 

yes. 

Maybe 

never . . . 

No, 

no— 

sometimes. 

Never. 

Always? 

Maybe. 

Yes— 

yes no 

maybe sometimes 

always never.

--Lloyd Schwarz (1941- ), poet, poet laureate of Somerville, Massachusetts, critic, professor, commentator

Making the House ready for the Lord

Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
still nothing is as shining as it should be
for you. Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice — it is the season of their
many children. What shall I do? And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances — but it is the season
when they need shelter, so what shall I do? And
the raccoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door. And still I believe you will
come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox,
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come in.

--Mary Oliver (1934-2019), American poet

Sing Out O Earth!

Psalm 96


Sing out, O Earth,
Bowl thrown on God’s wheel--
turning from your slumber like a drowsy child,
humming with joy as you spin beneath our feet
spinning like a top within a jetty of the Milky Way.

Sing out, O Earth:
Home of the martins swooping in arrow-flight,
perch of the kestrel and owl and waxwing
shelter of the rabbit, shyly scuttling through grasstufts.
You hold the whale within your cupped hands;
gratefully receiving each fallen leaf,
humus alive with industry and rebirth
(if we pondered it, would we ever tread so heedlessly?).

Sing out, O Earth—
Gathering yourself beneath the blanket of snow
with the promise of green ready to spring forth--
like a panther after its prey.
Sending winds to set the dogwood blossoms dancing,
bedecked with gaily waving blanket flowers and lupine
enticing the improbably aloft bumblebee

You carry us like a mother, gravid, arms slung
around the delicate body of her child.
Your shadow waxes full across the face of the Moon,
skimming like a raft through the velvet sea of night.

Sing out, O Earth!
and call us to join the harmony
major third, perfect fourth, minor fifth.
Let the springs murmur,
let the rivers unravel and spool out their tale,
let the oceans scrub your shores
leaving behind their tokens of sea-glass and shell
as they trace a path along your side.

Sing out, O Earth,
and join the chorus of constellations.
The trees of the wood shout “Alleluia” in joy,
while the rest of creation waits
in breathless hope and wonder--

The Star moves restlessly to illumine the scene
and the Magi jerk awake from their dreams
to set out for unknown lands;
the shepherds stir uneasily from their tower,
the young mother gasps as the pains begin.
Sing out with her, and receive the glad news--
The Prince of Peace approaches.

-- Leslie Scoopmire, December 2021.

A version of this poem was first published on Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on December 23, 2021.

The Truce of Christmas

Passionate peace is in the sky--
And in the snow in silver sealed
The beasts are perfect in the field,
And men seem men so suddenly--
(But take ten swords and ten times ten
And blow the bugle in praising men;
For we are for all men under the sun,
And they are against us every one;
And misers haggle and madmen clutch,
And there is peril in praising much.
And we have the terrible tongues uncurled
That praise the world to the sons of the world.)

The idle humble hill and wood
Are bowed upon the sacred birth,
And for one little hour the earth
Is lazy with the love of good--
(But ready are you, and ready am I,
If the battle blow and the guns go by;
For we are for all men under the sun,
And they are against us every one;
And the men that hate herd all together,
To pride and gold, and the great white feather
And the thing is graven in star and stone
That the men who love are all alone.)

Hunger is hard and time is tough,
But bless the beggars and kiss the kings,
For hope has broken the heart of things,
And nothing was ever praised enough.
(But bold the shield for a sudden swing
And point the sword when you praise a thing,
For we are for all men under the sun,
And they are against us every one;
And mime and merchant, thane and thrall
Hate us because we love them all;
Only till Christmastide go by
Passionate peace is in the sky.)

-- G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), journalist, writer, poet, convert to Christianity and Roman Catholicism

O Come O Wisdom

Today, December 17, we are seven days away from the Feast of Christmas. In the early Church, perhaps as early as the eighth century of the Common Era, it became a custom to sing a different antiphon on each of these seven days, using a term from Isaiah and other Hebrew scriptural texts which Christians believe describes a facet of Christ's identity. You might recognize these terms from the verses for "O Come O Come Emmanuel," which uses an O Antiphon in each verse.

The term for December 17 is "O Wisdom," described in Ecclesiasticus 24:1-9. The antiphon in English is this:

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other mightily,
and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.

What would it mean to think of Jesus as the Wisdom of God personified?

In his excellent book of collected poems for the Advent and Christmas seasons entitled Waiting on the Word, British priest and poet The Rev. Malcolm Guite wrote this sonnet in response to today’s antiphon:

O Sapientia

I cannot think unless I have been thought,
Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken.
I cannot teach except as I am taught,
Or break the bread except as I am broken.
O Mind behind the mind through which I seek,
O Light within the light by which I see,
O Word beneath the words with which I speak,
O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me,
O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me,
O Memory of time, reminding me,
My Ground of Being, always grounding me,
My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me,
Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring,
Come to me now, disguised as everything.


He then meditated upon this antiphon:

“In its first centuries the Church developed a custom of praying seven great prayers, calling afresh on Christ to come, addressing him by the mysterious titles found in the Old Testament, particularly in Isaiah: ‘O Wisdom!’ ‘O Root!’ ‘O Key!’ ‘O Light!’ ‘O Emmanuel!’ These prayers were said ‘antiphonally’, as the name suggests, either side of the Magnificat at Vespers from 17 to 23 December (although in some places they begin a day earlier, on 16 December). Each antiphon begins with the invocation ‘O’ and then calls on Christ, although never by name.

The mysterious titles and emblems given him from the pages of the Old Testament touch on our deepest needs and intuitions; then each antiphon prays the great Advent verb, Veni, ‘Come!’

There is, I think, both wisdom and humility in this strange abstention from the name of Christ in a Christian prayer. Of course, these prayers were composed "A.D.," perhaps around the seventh century, but in another sense, Advent itself is always B.C.! The whole purpose of Advent is to be for a moment fully and consciously Before Christ. In that place of darkness and waiting, we look for his coming and do not presume too much that we already know or have it. Whoever compiled these prayers was able, imaginatively, to write ‘B.C.’, perhaps saying to themselves: ‘If I hadn’t heard of Christ, and didn’t know the name of Jesus, I would still long for a saviour. I would still need someone to come. Who would I need? I would need a gift of Wisdom, I would need a Light, a King, a Root, a Key, a Flame.’ And poring over the pages of the Old Testament, they would find all these things promised in the coming of Christ. By calling on Christ using each of these seven several gifts and prophecies we learn afresh the meaning of a perhaps too familiar name."

As we prepare to enter Christmas week, may we ever invite Christ, the Wisdom of God, into our lives.

Choices

I go to the mountain side
of the house to cut saplings,
and clear a view to snow
on the mountain. But when I look up,
saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in
the uppermost branches.
I don’t cut that one.
I don’t cut the others either.
Suddenly, in every tree,
an unseen nest
where a mountain
would be.

--Tess Gallagher (1943- ) American poet, teacher, and translator, widow of Raymond Carver

Benediction: May the Source of life hold you in faith

May the Source of life hold you in the faith;
the Word of life speak clearly in truth around you;
and Breath of life, of grace, of wisdom,
sing in your inmost being this day and all your days. Amen.

--The Rev. Jeff Shrowder, The Billabong

Lines for Winter

for Ros Krauss

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

--Mark Strand (1934-2014), Canadian-American poet, editor, translator, and writer

Dismissal: Go now to follow the way of Jesus

Go now to follow the way of Jesus:
see others as he did;
dare to give freely as he did;
and to love unconditionally as he did.
Go, embraced by the Source of life, love and hope;
in the company of the Word of life;
encouraged by the Breath of life. Amen

--The Rev. Jeff Shrowder, The Billabong

In Winter

At four o’clock it’s dark.
Today, looking out through dusk
at three gray women in stretch slacks
chatting in front of the post office,
their steps left and right and back
like some quick folk dance of kindness,
I remembered the winter we spent
crying in each other’s laps.
What could you be thinking at this moment?
How lovely and strange the gangly spines
of trees against a thickening sky
as you drive from the library
humming off-key? Or are you smiling
at an idea met in a book
the way you smiled with your whole body
the first night we talked?
I was so sure my love of you was perfect,
and the light today
reminded me of the winter you drove home
each day in the dark at four o’clock
and would come into my study to kiss me
despite mistake after mistake after mistake.

--Michael Ryan (1946- ), St. Louis-born American poet,  from New and Selected Poems.

Advent

Wind whistling, as it does
in winter, and I think
nothing of it until

it snaps a shutter off
her bedroom window, spins
it over the roof and down

to crash on the deck in back,
like something out of Oz.
We look up, stunned—then glad

to be safe and have a story,
characters in a fable
we only half-believe.

Look, in my surprise
I somehow split a wall,
the last one in the house

we’re making of gingerbread.
We’ll have to improvise:
prop the two halves forward

like an open double door
and with a tube of icing
cement them to the floor.

Five days until Christmas,
and the house cannot be closed.
When she peers into the cold

interior we’ve exposed,
she half-expects to find
three magi in the manger,

a mother and her child.
She half-expects to read
on tablets of gingerbread

a line or two of Scripture,
as she has every morning
inside a dated shutter

on her Advent calendar.
She takes it from the mantel
and coaxes one fingertip

under the perforation,
as if her future hinges
on not tearing off the flap

under which a thumbnail picture
by Raphael or Giorgione,
Hans Memling or David

of apses, niches, archways,
cradles a smaller scene
of a mother and her child,

of the lidded jewel-box
of Mary’s downcast eyes.
Flee into Egypt, cries

the angel of the Lord
to Joseph in a dream,
for Herod will seek the young

child to destroy him. While
she works to tile the roof
with shingled peppermints,

I wash my sugared hands
and step out to the deck
to lug the shutter in,

a page torn from a book
still blank for the two of us,

a mother and her child.

-- Mary Jo Salter (1954- ), American poet, editor, playwright, and lyricist