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Poems
These are texts used in womens
liturgies.
We have tried to trace the owners and obtain their permission
where possible.
To Weavers Everywhere
God sits weeping
The beautiful creation tapestry
She
wove with such joy
Is mutilated, torn into shreds,
Reduced to rags,
Its beauty fragmented by force.
God sits weeping.
But look!
She is gathering up the
shreds
To weave something new.
She
gathers
The rags of hard work
Attempts at advocacy,
Initiatives for peace,
Protests against injustice,
All the seemiñgly little and weak
Words and deeds
offered
Sacrificially
In hope, in faith, in love.
And look!
She is weaving them all
With golden
threads of Jubilation
Into a new tapestry,
A creation
richer, more beautiful
Than the old one was!
God sits weaving
Patiently, persistently,
With a
smile that
Radiates like a rainbow
On her tear-streaked
face.
And She invites us
Not on1y to keep offering her the
Shreds and rags of our suffering
And our work,
But even more -
To take our place beside Her
At the
Jubilee Loom,
And weave with her
The tapestry of the
New Creation.
M.
Rienstra
Life Loom
Accept the offering of ourselves:
women and men...men and women,
our
separate strands
to be woven in and out,
over and under and
through,
as we seek to come together,
the strands...
men and
women...
women and men,
a part of life,
a part of Church,
A
PART OF YOU.
Give us a vision of the tapestry
you weave
with our willingness to be
shuttled
back and forth,
women and men ...men and women...back
and forth...
as the tapestry of days becomes the tapestry of years.
But
the vision of tapestries remains...
the patterns and the fabric that COULD
be,
that COULD be,
as we are shuttled back and forth..men and
women...
..women and men.....back and forth..the
strands out of which
you weave a fabric...a tapestry,
OF LIFE...OF CHURCH...OF YOU.
Amen.
Kira
Sohldoost R.C.,
Journey to the Millennium
I dream of a Church
I
dream of a church
that joins in with Gods laughing
as she rocks
in her rapture,
enjoying her art:
shes glad of her world,
in its risking and growing:
tis the child she has borne
and
holds close to her heart.
I
dream of a church
that joins in with Gods weeping
as she
crouches, weighed down
by the sorrow she sees:
she cries for the
hostile,
the cold and no-hoping,
for she bears in herself
our
despair and dis-ease
I dream of a church that
joins in with Gods dancing
as she
moves like the wind
and the wave and the fire:
as church that can
pick up
its skirts, pirouetting,
with the steps that can signal
Gods deepest desire.
I
dream of a church that
joins in with Gods loving
as she bends
to embrace
the unlovely and the lost.
A church that can free,
by
its sharing and daring,
the imprisoned and poor,
and then shoulder
the cost.
God, make us a church
that joins in with your living
as you cherish
and challenge,
rein in and release,
a church that is winsome,
impassioned, inspiring;
lioness of your justice
and lamb of your
peace.
Kate Compston
Winter God
Winter
God
Waiting in the coldness
away from the city's wamth and bustle
away
from the touch of friends and an
open door
Winter God
pregnant with Christmas carols
knowing that the journey to the stable
will be lonely and devoid
of all that is safe and known
Winter God
the angels keep their distance
the world is full of strangers
fellow
strugglers, who recognise no one
and for whom the nights and days are cold
Winter God
walking into Advent
the wait of not knowing
the wait
of being scared and alone
Winter God
whom the prophets sensed in the darkness
bring us with you
we, whose eyes are too frightened to face you
bring us with you to
Bethlehem
and when the birth is over
give us our name
Ruth Burgess
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