Sunday 13 March 2011

Earthcquakes and Tsunamis

I am just popping in for a few moments this morning as I want to share this poem that my friend has written with regards the terrible events in Japan.   I will come back later today...promise...

A Psalm of Earthquakes and Tsunamis


O Lord, hear the cry of your people

as creation trembles and we are made small


The mountains are laid low and the seas rise

The planet shrugs its shoulders


The restless dirt groans and moans

under the weight of our living.


Crops and land are lost to the salt of the world's tears

Wave upon wave cascades over the face of your earth



Their weeping carries away

The witness of our living.


In one convulsive heave

pride and possessions, people and places



are shaken down by the land, thrown up by the sea

to be caught by the air:


tossed and turned, and returned

to the wave of anxiety


that crashes onward

An unstopable force of creation and destruction.



Though you called upon us to name the beasts of the field

And the birds of the air



Still the sea is yours

You made it - and its raging fury



The land is yours

You formed it - and its restless heavings


And we, moulded by your hands to hold your breath

are bound to this world by your will and your Word


So I will praise you God in the midst of the fury

From the depths of my grief, for the land and the sea and the lives that are lost



For the nurture and nature that shapes us and feeds us

Though its power astounds, and its might dismays us



Still your Word brings order out of chaos

And your mercies comfort and sustain us


Reminding us, even as we weep

of green pastures, beside still waters
 
 written by my friend Revd.Angie Sheir Jones.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing Sybil. My heart and prayers go out to the people of Japan.

    Isaiah 54:10:

    Though the mountains be shaken
    and the hills be removed,
    yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
    nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
    says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

    and Psalm 46:2-3:

    Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
    though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.
    Selah

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  2. That is beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

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  3. A beautiful response to an extraordinarily tragic happening. Prayers for all those affected.

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  4. Thanks for sharing that Sybil. I wish all of Japan could read this very thing right now.

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