Friday, April 4, 2025

A Poem, A Proverb, A Painting, A Prayer: A Lenten Journey-- Day 31: Friday after the 4th Sunday in Lent

Today’s Theme: Hope After the Flood 

 

Poem: After Flood

Only these ravished banks

Their dry wounds bared to man

Sine Time once more comes slow with its white covering,

Show where the waters rn.

 

The stream proclaims his thanks

And neatly skirts a stone

That turns its smooth white face to bar his measuring

The bed that was his own.

 

Yet once his swollen flanks

Pushed with a maddened force

The tender slopes that leaned against him hovering

In fear, at his wild course.

 

Tore through the bowldered ranks

That questioning his right

Stood, like an ancient law against his pleasuring

Against his lawless might.

------------Jean Starr Untermeyer (1886-1970), American poet and translator

 

 

Proverb:

“Every storm runs out of rain.”

-------—Maya Angelou

 

 

Painting: The Falls of the Clyde: Corra Linn, Hugh William Williams, 1820

  

 

Prayer: Mercy in the Storm

Most Merciful God,
may our prayers rise on the scent of jasmine
as we praise and bless your love in our lives.
The curtain of the night parts
and you spread a new day before us:
Lord, hear our prayer.

In beholding afresh the wonders of creation,
let us see with new eyes and hearts, O Christ.
In taking up the work you have given us,
let us be guided to do your will, O Christ.
In turning from sin and self-centeredness,
let us atone for our wrongs, and reconcile, O Christ.

When tumults rage and threaten to swamp us,
let us remember that you do not bring them, O God:
Your hand holds us fast,
and commands the waves to cease-
may we never forget You are with us within the storm.

Merciful One, make your face shine upon us this day,
and upon those whom we now name.
Amen.

------------------Leslie Barnes Scoopmire


Written after a series of storms have gone through the Midwest for the last month.

No comments:

Post a Comment