Lent 2018 (Vol LXXXI, No. 3, pp 50)
Patmos Lyric #4
I am writing this naked, crouching above stick in
The mud, my flesh-sweat stinking of fish I netted
In the shallows. I am waiting for Revelation—
When Christ crouched in the dust and wrote in the sand near
The captured adulteress, He waited like this
For words to transform the dirt into a solid
Epistle. The woman wept. The men with the rocks
Shifted weight impatiently, copper and salt of
Blood on their tongues. But the earth clods understood
Waiting for language was a virgin pregnancy.
The surface seems inert, dire, even, but when scratched
Just so, water and land get rightly divided.
The Creator proclaims in Aleph, Bet, “Light be,”
And behold, there is light. The rocks from clenched fists drop.
Woman loses her accusers. The ground upholds
Her bare feet running away.
The mud, my flesh-sweat stinking of fish I netted
In the shallows. I am waiting for Revelation—
When Christ crouched in the dust and wrote in the sand near
The captured adulteress, He waited like this
For words to transform the dirt into a solid
Epistle. The woman wept. The men with the rocks
Shifted weight impatiently, copper and salt of
Blood on their tongues. But the earth clods understood
Waiting for language was a virgin pregnancy.
The surface seems inert, dire, even, but when scratched
Just so, water and land get rightly divided.
The Creator proclaims in Aleph, Bet, “Light be,”
And behold, there is light. The rocks from clenched fists drop.
Woman loses her accusers. The ground upholds
Her bare feet running away.
A Portrait of the Christian as a Young Intellectual
Jaroslav Pelikan
June 1961
In Thy Light
O. P. Kretzmann
September 1969
Love and Marriage: A Wedding Sermon
Stanley Hauerwas
June 1977
Creativity and Creation: A Lutheran Context for the Arts
Martin E. Marty
February 1984
Beauty and Justice
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Easter 2009
Jaroslav Pelikan
June 1961
In Thy Light
O. P. Kretzmann
September 1969
Love and Marriage: A Wedding Sermon
Stanley Hauerwas
June 1977
Creativity and Creation: A Lutheran Context for the Arts
Martin E. Marty
February 1984
Beauty and Justice
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Easter 2009
