Sunday, August 23, 2020

Poetry and Music Sunday

We have chosen six poems and six songs.

This can serve as a guide for worship or for you to use as a devotion througout your week.

The poems and Songs are outlined in this way:

identifying the beauty of words
praising God
acknowledging the earth and all God’s living things
there are poems about people
about a Cuban mother
about a Muslim boy from Turkey
and love.

All Together (Crockett/Ware)

All together sing the song

All together everyone belongs

Together a family

We are all, all, all, together

Drawing near together

Here in this place

Joining to remember

Gathered around this grace

Love that’s never failing

Ageless and new

With open eyes and open hearts

To join what God will do…

All together sing the song

All together everyone belongs

Together a family

We are all, all, all, together

All of God’s creation

Breathing as one

As we share together

The spirit that moves us on

Kaleidoscope of culture

- One family

Reaching out to hold each other

Love and learn to be…

All together sing the song

All together everyone belongs

Together a family

We are all, all, all, together

Poem:
Let’s remake the world with words (Gregory Orr)

Let’s remake the world with words.

Not frivolously, nor

To hide from what we fear,

But with a purpose.

Let’s,

As Wordsworth said, remove

“The dust of custom” so things

Shine again, each object arrayed

In its robe of original light.

And then we’ll see the world

As if for the first time,

As once we gazed at the beloved

Who was gazing at us.

If You’re Out There (John Legend)

If You’re Out There

If you hear this message, wherever you stand

I'm calling every woman, calling every man

We're the generation, we can't afford to wait

The future started yesterday and we're already late

We've been looking for a song to sing

Searched for a melody - Searched for someone to lead

We've been looking for the world to change

If you feel the same, then go on and say…

If you're out there, sing along with me

If you're out there, I'm dying to believe

That you're out there

Stand up and say it loud if you're out there

Tomorrow's starting now

No more broken promises, no more call to war

Unless it's love and peace that we're really fighting for

We can destroy hunger, we can conquer hate

Put down the arms and raise your voice, we're joining hands today

I was looking for a song to sing

I searched for a leader, but the leader was me

We were looking for the world to change

We can be heroes, just go on and say…

If you're out there, sing along with me

If you're out there, I'm dying to believe

That you’re out there

Stand up and say it loud if you're out there

Tomorrow's starting now

Now….

If you're ready we can shake the world

Believe again, it starts within

We don't have to wait for destiny

We should be the change that we want to see…

If you're out there, and you're ready now

Say it loud - Scream it out

If you're out there - Sing along with me

If you're out there - I'm dying to believe that

You're out there - Stand up and say it loud

If you're out there - Tomorrow's starting now

If you're out there…

If you hear this message, wherever you stand

I'm calling every woman, calling every man

We're the generation, we can't afford to wait

The future started yesterday…

Poem:
Praise Song for the Day (Elizabeth Alexander)

(A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration)

Each day we go about our business,

walking past each other, catching each other's

eyes or not, about to speak or speaking

All about us is noise. All about us is

noise and bramble, thorn and din, each

one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning

a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,

repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,

with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,

with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky.

A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words

spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,

words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark

the will of someone and then others, who said

I need to see what's on the other side.

I know there's something better down the road.

We need to find a place where we are safe.

We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.

Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,

who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built

brick by brick the glittering edifices

they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.

Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,

the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,

others by first do no harm or take no more

than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,

love that casts a widening pool of light,

love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,

any thing can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Poem:
Ode to Dirt (Sharon Olds)

Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you,

I thought that you were only the background

for the leading characters—the plants

and animals and human animals.

It’s as if I had loved only the stars

and not the sky which gave them space

in which to shine. Subtle, various,

sensitive, you are the skin of our terrain,

you’re our democracy. When I understood

I had never honored you as a living

equal, I was ashamed of myself,

as if I had not recognized

a character who looked so different from me,

but now I can see us all, made of the

same basic materials—

cousins of that first exploding from nothing—

in our intricate equation together. O dirt,

help us find ways to serve your life,

you who have brought us forth, and fed us,

and who at the end will take us in

and rotate with us, and wobble, and orbit.

Sing of the Love of God (Russ Ware)

Sing of the love

Sing of the love of God

Sing of the love

Sing of the love of God

Dust and earth below

Air and sky above

Stars and light will shine

To sing creation’s love

Sing of the love

Sing of the love of God

Sing of the love

Sing of the love of God

Here and now to be

Time and space to live

Heart and minds to bind

Life and love to give

Sing of the love

Sing of the love of God

Sing of the love

Sing of the love of God

Dust and earth below

Sing of the love of God

Air and sky above

Sing of the love of God

Stars and light will shine

Sing of the love of God

Poem:

America the Beautiful Again (Richard Blanco)

How I sang O, beautiful like a psalm at church

with my mother, her Cuban accent scaling-up

every vowel: O, bee-yoo-tee-ful, yet in perfect

pitch, delicate and tuned to the radiant beams

of stained glass light. How she taught me to fix

my eyes on the crucifix as we sang our thanks

to our savior for this country that saved us—

our voices hymns as passionate as the organ

piping towards the very heavens. How I sang

for spacious skies closer to those skies while

perched on my father’s sun-beat shoulders,

towering above our first Fourth of July parade.

How the timbre through our bodies mingled,

breathing, singing as one with the brass notes

of the marching band playing the only song

he ever learned in English. How I dared sing it

at assembly with my teenage voice cracking

for amber waves of grain that I’d never seen,

nor the purple mountain majesties—but could

imagine them in each verse rising from my gut,

every exclamation of praise I belted out until

my throat hurt: America! and again America!

How I began to read Nietzsche and doubt god,

yet still wished for god to shed His grace on

thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood.

How I still want to sing despite all the truth

of our wars and our gunshots ringing louder

than our school bells, our politicians smiling

lies at the mic, the deadlock of our divided

voices shouting over each other instead of

singing together. How I want to sing again—

beautiful or not, just to be harmony—from

sea to shining sea—with the only country

I know enough to know how to sing for.

America the Beautiful (Bates/Ward)

O Beautiful, for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties,

Above the fruited plain.

America! America!

God shed his grace on thee.

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea.

Poem:
Morning Prayer (Adnan Onart)

In a poor Istanbul neighborhood,

At the ground floor of our house,

My great-grandmother says:

It is time for morning prayer.

If you pray, she says, pure as a child,

From this corner of the room,

An angel will appear.

I am five years old closing my eyes.

Allahü Ekber.

Essallamü alleykü ve rahmetullah.

I am fifty opening my eyes.

In Boston, Massachusetts,

In a not so poor neighborhood

At the top floor of our house

Praying my morning prayer.

From that corner of the room,

My great-grandmother appears.

Poem:

Love After Love (Derek Walcott)

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

Breathe On Us, Holy Spirit

Breathe on us Holy Spirit. Breathe on us, Breath of God.

To do justice, and love mercy,

And walk humbly with our God. To do justice, and love mercy,

And walk humbly with our God.