Welcome to Poetry & Prayer: The Eighth Day
You might want to read the Introductory Post to this Prayer Bench series. Poetry and Prayer will be a continuing category at the Prayer Bench. This is the last post giving particular presence to the meeting of the General Council of The United Church of Canada in Corner Brook, NL.
This is a travel day for many of the Commissioners. The agenda also notes the General Council Executive will meet. The Staff Leaders will meet.
It is the eighth day.
I am intrigued by a tradition of the eighth day of creation
known as a day of new beginning or re-creation.
This is why, I learned, that baptismal fonts often have eight sides.
The eighth day, an echo of the first, but in a new beginning.
So this is the eighth day.
I offer a poem that speaks of investing in hope. It is written by Denise Levertov.
Read the whole poem here.
You really need to read the whole poem but I do hold up the closing lines of the poem, “For the New Year, 1981.”
“Only so, by division,
will hope increase,like a clump of irises, which will cease to flower
unless you distribute
the clustered roots, unlikely source—
clumsy and earth-covered—
of grace.” – Denise Levertov.
We hold in prayer the returning Commissioners, the new Moderator, the General Council Executive, the staff in General Council and their colleagues in Conference and Presbytery.
Let us pray that hope and grace abundant will flower in communities of faith.
