Thealogical Lady: A Blog

Greeting the New Year

1/1/2018

Spiral Goddess. Image Credit: naturalshaman.blogspot.com

This year brings with it changes: some eagerly welcomed, and some simply needed.

There will be several changes for me as I continue along this path of life.

1) Beginning this month, I will no longer be holding Thean Evening Prayer outside my home. This is a loss, as I have loved and learned a great deal from this monthly sacred circle of women. It is a gain of time and energy, both of which are increasingly precious to me. I invite those who have gathered with me for Thean Evening Prayer and any others who wish to develop their own regular, rhythmic prayer practice to pray with the Thean Psalter, which is available as a free PDF or as a print prayer book ($10). This Psalter is written in a feminine voice with feminine pronouns and names for Thea in a feminist thealogical worldview, and is an enriching supplement to other faith traditions as well as a strong, illuminating, standalone form of prayer.

2) The Thea House Church liturgies, which have previously been private gatherings, will be open to all pilgrims with open hearts beginning this March. More details will be announced in the coming weeks.

3) I have found in the last year that I have failed to make adequate room in my life for two of my great joys: walking and writing. I resolve to set aside less vital pursuits to make room for these. To that end, I look forward this year to participating in my third half-marathon and finishing my second novel.

4) I imagine that each of us seeks to be more loving and less resentful. I cling sometimes to resentments and anger when I feel wronged or observe someone else being wronged, but I seek to keep those feelings close only long enough to learn from them and let them go in peace. The longer I journey along this road of mine, the more aware I become that my time is limited, and my desire to love abundantly and beautifully competes with the time I give over to festering anger. I seek to choose love and beauty, and to allow anger to grow into both of those rather than falling stagnant.

May 2018 be rich with joy, love, and hope for all Creation. ♥

What I'm not teaching my daughters

10/15/2015

As I retranslate the Book of Psalms, I come across too many instances in which the psalmist writes something like this:

"Pour out your wrath upon the heathen who have not known you
and upon the the kingdoms that have not called upon your Name."
--Psalm 79

This usually comes after several lines of lament about how God has become angry at Israel and turned God's face away from them, so that their enemies overpower them. I'm nearly finished translating the Psalter, and I'm shocked at how often lines like these come up. How did I pray the whole Psalter every month when I was a Benedictine Canon (Novice)? How did I let such vengeful words pass my lips?

I suspect the rote character of reciting the psalms daily, combined with the daunting task of chanting the psalm tones correctly, dampened the impact of the words I was praying. In other words, I didn't know what I was praying. Now that I approach these words again, psalm by psalm, line by line, I can no longer gloss over them like I once did. I feel compelled to leave them out altogether. I don't want my daughters to learn that, if things are going badly for them, a) God is mad at them, or b) they have a right to wish God's wrath on someone else. Both of those ideas are completely backwards according to my thealogy.

I'm struggling as I finish this translation to remain true to the text when there's so much that I find thealogically problematic. There are many beautiful, transformative lines in the psalms, like "Create in me a clean heart, O God" (Psalm 51). There are many lines of praise to God, and gratitude for the wonders of creation, the work of God's hands. Those lines are lines that I will teach my daughters to memorize. I may even keep some of the lines that ask God why she has turned her face away, because it's a very human thing to search for reasons for the bad things that happen to us. When things are truly awful, it's natural for one to question God about why it's happened. But I will not teach my daughters to believe that God is wrathful, much less that God takes out her wrath on people when she loses her temper. My Goddess doesn't work like that. My Goddess is a Goddess of mercy, love, and tender care.

I feel a loss as I continue my work on the Psalter--elements of my childhood faith that I accepted without question are now no longer acceptable to me, and I'm having to let them go. I'm even having to rethink the Exodus, because I can't attribute the plagues to God's will. The Judeo-Christian pillars of my faith are failing, and I'm having to reimagine Goddess from the ground up.

Despite my losses, I trust that this book of prayer I'm creating is also revealing Goddess to me, one line at a time.

Characterizing God(dess)

9/21/2015

In the BCP's prescribed psalms for today, God is depicted as a jealous and vengeful God. In Psalm 105, the Egyptians didn't listen to God's command to let the people of Israel go, so God unleashed plagues on them, including death upon their firstborns. Then, in Psalm 106, the people of Israel "intermingled with the heathen and learned their pagan ways," and thus "they were polluted by their actions and went whoring in their evil deeds." Consequently, "the wrath of the Lord was kindled against his (sic) people, and those who hated them ruled over them."

In other words, people didn't act in accordance with God's will, so God threw magnificent tantrums.

As I revise the Psalter into a Thean prayer book, I find I can't abide by this manner of characterizing God. When I imagine God, I imagine her acting like a compassionate, patient, wise, peaceful grown-up--not like a child or a cult leader.

I don't want a fickle God. I want a God who's bigger than that. I want a God who shows her might in her gentleness and care; I want a God who forgives without demanding punishment first. I want a God who gets righteously angry at oppression and enslavement--realities that any loving individual ought to be angry about--and at the same time, I want her primary motivation to be love for all her creatures, who are (in equal measure) her incarnation.

As I reweave the psalms for Thean use, justice for the poor and oppressed will appear, but I hope to eliminate tantrums--particularly death-dealing ones. My Goddess is a Goddess of life, and I want to convey that, one psalm at a time.

37

2/6/2015

Thea,
just as anger ebbs
a tide of joy rushes in:
you bubble all around me.
Tickle my feet
until my laughter leaps.
Amen.

Advent Journeying: Power

12/6/2014

Yesterday I read about a Baptist pastor here in Tempe who's making international headlines. He claims that the solution to the AIDS epidemic is in the book of Leviticus--all we have to do is kill off all the gays.

I'm dumbfounded that such hate speech actually gets spoken by anyone in 2014. I am surrounded by dear friends who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. And here some misguided Bible thumper is busy claiming that genocide of them is a good idea.

I am so angry that stringing words together is difficult. I realized something yesterday that helped free my anger to do something fruitful: I have no power over this Baptist preacher. It is highly unlikely that I or anyone who shares my views will ever change his mind.

What I can do, however, is speak truth to the power of this white, privileged, Christian male. It's simple: he's wrong. His interpretation of scripture is wrong. His approach to Christianity is wrong.

I'm planning to participate in a peaceful protest in front of Faithful Word Baptist Church on December 14. That's one more thing I can do.

Advent is the season that calls us to reimagine--sometimes in a radical way--what it means to be a Christian. It's a season of possibility, of discovery, of untrodden paths. It's a time to find out what we're really made of. Are we willing to speak up against voices that are supposed to be trustworthy when those voices break trust? Are we willing to say someone's wrong when doing so might bring us harm? Are we willing to be led by the innocence of a newborn infant, rather than the power of a king?

Advent Journeying: Sweeping out the Hearth

12/2/2014

An old Advent hymn invites us to sweep the hearth to prepare for the arrival of light who is to be born.

As I sweep the ashes from my inner hearth, I wince in pain--there are still embers burning, traces of old and new anger that haven't burned out.

What is one to do with old, stubborn fire? I could throw water on the embers, but then I'd have to wait for the hearth to dry out again, and I'd also have a considerable mess to deal with.

Alternatively, I could fan the embers with fresh air--encourage them to burn hotter. Bursting into flame, they will burn hotter and faster, and soon will turn to cool ash, allowing me to clear the way for a new flame to alight there.

It seems counter-intuitive to nurse embers of anger into full flame, and yet it is a singularly efficient way to make the vital task of hearth-sweeping possible.

So I fan the flame, nursing my anger that it might burn away at long last.

Spirit Whispers: The power of story

8/17/2014

The following is the text of a homily I preached this morning at St. Augustine's Episcopal Parish in Tempe, Arizona.

I’d like you to pause for a moment and think about your favorite book. Think about the title, the story, and the characters. Think about the actual copy or copies of the book that you’ve read, and where you were when you last read it. By a show of hands, how many of you have read your favorite book half a dozen times or more?

I reread one of my favorite books this week. My copy of Lawrence Thornton’s Imagining Argentina has yellowing paper, a splitting spine, and some of the most compelling characters I’ve ever met in words. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read and recommended Imagining Argentina to others. It’s a hard book to read, but the vision of hope it presents is powerful precisely because the heart of the book is so difficult. I find that lots of books and stories are great to sink my teeth into, but then there are those precious books whose stories sink into me, and my life is different—more thoughtful, more considered, more virtuous—for it.

When Fr. Gil announced several months ago that I would be preaching on August 17, I looked up the lessons of the day and practically jumped for joy. The stories of the Bible we hear today from the Old Testament and the gospel are two of my favorite stories from scripture.

Fast forward to earlier this week, when I read an e-mail containing a message from our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. She wrote to ask the entire Episcopal Church to make today, August 17, a day of prayer for those in Iraq.

It would be pretty hard not to pay attention to all the stories of what’s going on internationally these days. The Gaza Strip has been a focal point of terror between Palestine and Israel. Iraq is in the news for its highly visible genocide of Christians, among others. Thousands of militants who believe war is the only way to end war are ending the lives of innocent people, while they simultaneously inspire the uprising of new war-mongerers on every side. The desire to maintain the purity of one’s own land is the driving force behind much of this violence and prejudice. Even in our country, young unarmed men and women are being shot and killed by those who only seem to see that these young people are on the wrong side of the American color divide. Children are being detained like prisoners on our borders, in limbo between a land they cannot thrive in and a land that treats them as chaff among amber waves of grain.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t slept well for weeks. These stories echo painfully in my heart. They force me to acknowledge that that simmering hatred becomes a blazing rage in manifold ways each day among people both far away and here at home, people who claim to be driven by the call of the law, or the call of God—people like me.

On this day of prayer for those innocents who are dying in Iraq, I see in today’s lessons stories that are less interesting than urgent, more deep than obvious.

The story of Joseph is an epic--we first meet him as a boy, Jacob's son. His many older brothers, in a fit of collective jealousy, throw him into a well, leaving him for dead. Then they change their minds, pull him out of the well, and sell him into slavery instead, figuring they ought to get something out of him. Joseph ends up in Egypt and endures prison and other grave hardships, with no hope but God's promise to help him. Eventually he becomes Pharaoh's most trusted advisor. When we encounter him in today's lesson, his brothers have just arrived, desperate for mercy from Pharaoh’s advisor in the midst of famine. They don’t know that the powerful man before them is their brother. As Joseph prepares to reveal his identity to his brothers, he sends everyone else away. In the end, all of Egypt, even the Pharaoh's household, hears his cries when he is alone with his brothers for the first time in years.

Next, in the gospel story, we hear about a Canaanite woman, a foreign woman, who comes to Jesus begging healing for her daughter who is possessed by a demon. At first Jesus ignores her, as if she weren’t even there. Then his disciples get antsy and ask him to send her away. To appease his friends, he gives her an excuse. She persists. He gives another excuse; she persists again, but this time she refers to him as master of the story that they’re creating through their dialogue, and it’s at that point where the story turns.

The difficulty with these stories for me comes when I try to put myself in them. I'm not powerful Pharaoh. I’m not wise, faithful Joseph. I’m not the woman begging on her knees for her daughter's life, and I’m certainly not Jesus.

When I put myself in these stories, the characters that resemble me most are the jealous, grudging brothers and the possessive, anxious disciples. I live a comfortable, privileged life. I don't easily relinquish my comfort, particularly for someone I don't like or whom I have no direct connection to. With all the horrors I read about in the news, whether in Gaza or in Iraq or in the United States, I perceive the selfishness of my fellow humans keenly, because it is that same selfishness on a grand scale that I practice on a micro-scale. I see in middle-eastern war-mongerers, as well as white-skinned insiders screaming at and threatening brown-skinned outsiders, unholy icons of the many ways in which my heart is hard and impenetrable. I cry over what I read in the news and in these scriptures, because I know how hard my heart is to break open, and I know it can't be any easier to break open any of theirs.

But here's the thing: Joseph's brothers, who sent Joseph to his doom, watched as God's grace broke through their evil deeds. God’s grace revealed not only their brother who had saved all of Egypt and surrounding lands from famine, but revealed their brother who loved them more than ever.

And then there’s the foreign woman from the gospel. By calling Jesus “Master,” she forces him to pay attention to her. Not only does he pay attention to her, but his understanding of what it means to be Lord is subverted by her. Through this woman’s unflagging persistence in the face of blatant rejection and humiliation, Jesus—God’s own chosen one-- perceives that his power as Lord is not just for the sake of “his people,” but for all who call on him for saving help. Through this foreign woman, God's grace breaks through the walls Jesus and his people had built against this woman, this outsider.

If God can accomplish mighty, gracious deeds through possessive, jealous, rebellious hearts like those of Joseph’s brothers, and if God's grace can break through the walls that Jesus' disciples and even Jesus put up to guard their selfish interests--then perhaps God's grace can break through right here in our midst.

What if the stories of war-mongerers and privileged insiders were subverted by stories more persistent and enduring than theirs? What if they were to see that they are indeed called by God--not called to hate and shut out strangers, but rather to love and to welcome and uplift them? I wonder, if we each take a moment to remember again our favorite books and stories, what we might discover about ourselves from them. What do we find most compelling? Do we embrace the bravery and outrageous kindness and selflessness that we encounter in our most beloved, imperfect characters?

What if we were to embrace Joseph’s love of those who had utterly betrayed him? What if you and I embraced Jesus’ humility in accepting that we, as citizens of the most powerful nation on earth, are accountable to more than just the people we call our own? What if we listened not to our own wisdom, but the wisdom that inspires us to become who we are called to be? Maybe the Word of God, Holy Sophia, would become incarnate in us as it did in Mary when she made her bold, unwavering, all-embracing “Yes.”

Perhaps, if each of us said yes to the wisdom in the stories that are most precious and compelling to us, we, like Mary, would become God-bearers in the world. Perhaps then, beginning with you and me, God’s peace would spread to all lands and peoples, and then perhaps the peoples of the world, both here and elsewhere, would come at last to dwell in the everlasting peace of God.

Amen.

Spirit Whispers: When It Comes to Healing (Guest Post)

8/7/2014

Elizabeth A. Hawksworth is a published poet and historical fiction writer as well as a prominent blogger on topics of feminism, body positivity, fatphobia, writing, nannying, social justice, and spirituality. She is bold in writing about issues of ultimate concern when remaining silent and unnoticed would be, in the moment, easier. Here is part of her story.

A few hours north of Sarnia, Ontario, there is a quiet place nestled in a forest. Built with rustic logs, smelling like pine pitch, and surrounded by acres of misty trees, this small building stands, institutional and peaceful; utilitarian and somehow unique. In its natural surroundings, staring at a painting of the Baby Jesus, I found God.

Prayer, for me, has been a way to get through everyday life. I pray for health. I pray to be a better person. I pray for my family, my friends. I pray for things I want, things I don’t deserve, things I’m desperate about, things I can’t deal with. It’s not a fancy prayer. It’s often a mantra, repeated over and over, sometimes under my breath, sometimes out loud, sometimes mouthed in public places, and sometimes earnestly in the dark. And I pray every night, without fail, before I can close my eyes and sleep. I have to touch base. I have to let Him know. I need You. Please help me.

In that church retreat, hidden in the woods, I learned how to pray for more than just myself. I unlocked the talent I had all along – the talent of being able to use my words to change the world for the better. And I never felt closer to God, or more powerful with Him through me than I did then – creating creeds, weaving poetry, sharing with everyone my own personal faith, placing my feet on the path to social justice. If you had asked me then, I would have told you that I didn’t think I would ever be able to part from my relationship with God.

How things change.

I was badly wounded by the Church when I was a teenager. Shy, uncertain, and angry, I was struggling with my own sexuality and my sense of being. Holding hands with God, or so I thought, I faced the people who, also holding hands with God, told me that I didn’t belong. That I would burn in hell. That I was a sinner, a deliberate sinner, one who was so full of pride and bravado and hubris and lies, that I would never be welcome unless I changed who I was at the core. I had grown up solid in my belief that God makes us in His perfect image, and never makes mistakes. Now, I wasn’t sure if I was wrong, or if they were, but my hurt overwhelmed my faith.

I went back at 18, denying who I was. I joined a church of beauty and majesty, of tradition as old as time, and restrictions worse than any other church I’d ever been to. Was it punishment for the supposed sin of who I thought I was? To this day, I can’t answer that. All I know is that everywhere I turned, I found leaders, church members, even the Bible itself, it seemed, telling me that the person I am would never be good enough for God.

So I left. And I tried to forget.

I’m a rational person, most of the time. I also hold grudges, long after I should. And the hurt faded into twinges and then roared back to life in explosive, fiery anger. I wanted to hurt the Church the way it had hurt me. I wanted to hurt God. I wanted to burn in hell the way they said, just so that I could be myself without pretense, so I could live in sin without consequence and guilt.

And inside, I cried out for the God I knew in that quiet forest retreat. I begged Him to help me. I pushed Him away with both hands while simultaneously crying for Him in the night. And to His credit, He hasn’t let me go, though most days, I continue to angrily push and push and push, as hard as I can. He has forgiven me and continues to forgive me, despite all of my anger and moral failings, despite my hurt and my pride. He has quietly proven over and over that He thinks I am good enough for Him.

Knowing this, I suspect that one day, I will heal completely from my scars and from my open, bleeding wounds, the way that even the biggest wounds do heal. The scars will always hurt a little, but they won’t always be open and raw, ready to bleed again at another article about Christians saying “God hates fags”, or someone telling me that you can’t be Christian and gay.

But here’s the thing about healing. When you forgive someone, you don’t do it for them – not really. They benefit from it. They may think that you are doing them a favour. And maybe, part of healing is to acknowledge that you acted wrongly, too, even if at the time, you don’t think you did. Maybe part of it is to be like God, and not push away your fellow human, even if that fellow human has done cutting, horrible things to your psyche and to your sense of self.

The thing about healing is that forgiveness is mostly for you. It’s to reach out with your own humanity and be the bigger person. It doesn’t mean you forget, and it doesn’t mean that you have to draw that person back into your heart. What it does mean is that where the rushing, raging rivers have broken the bridge of faith, forgiveness helps to place new planks, to tie the knots back into the ropes. Where the bridge has rotted in places, forgiveness places brand new materials to make your bridge stronger than ever before. Where the bridge is shaky, forgiveness helps to steady it so that when you walk across it and try to meet God on the other side, it’s not so hard and scary to cross it.

Because when it comes to healing, it might take awhile. It might take a long time to rebuild your bridge. And I’m not saying that someone isn’t going to come along and say cutting things that will throw it into disrepair. I’ve rebuilt my bridge many times now . . . and I’ve begged God to help me find the strength to do it again.

Your bridge isn’t just to God. Your bridge is to your fellow humans, as well. The ones that put up walls to keep others out – your bridge goes to their door and invites them to come and meet you in the middle. The ones that tell you you’re not welcome – your bridge goes to them and tells them that they are welcome to come and belong with you. And the ones that meet you with hatred – your bridge shows them that the easier path is love.

Because maybe the place you’re all trying to reach is that little church retreat in the woods, with the whispering leaves and the distant rush of the many creeks. Maybe the path you all want to walk is the shady wide dirt path with the dappled sunlight through the trees, that wide and welcoming path that has benches to rest on and clear pools to drink from. Maybe the paths we choose are inevitably the harder ones because the stony paths teach you what smooth footing feels like, and we have to learn, in order to grow.

Maybe the pain and the blood are something we all experience, even when we’re the ones wielding the swords that hurt. And maybe when it comes to healing, you find it in the silence and the dark, the pleas and the desperation, the fact that when you couldn’t walk anymore, He carried you – and carries you still.

Maybe when it comes to healing, it becomes the easier path to take – broken bridge, and all.

Spirit Whispers: Quiet

7/27/2014

As I read the news of terror and anger in the world, I perceive the brokenness of my own heart.

As the murder of innocents continues, I'm more and more aware of the evil that hungers inside me.

It's so easy to feed it when I'm tired, weary, or feeling thin.

It's so hard to empty myself, to starve my control, to make room for quiet, for stillness, for peace.

But I look at the alternative. It's all over the news media.

How can I glut on fury, doubt, and ego when I can taste the promise of the God-who-loves?

Could the morsel of my heart's hope be multiplied into a love-feast for the whole world?

God, you know, we could really use a miracle.

Create in me a clean heart, o God.

Easter: Day 32

5/21/2014

There are rare days in my life when the only faithfulness I can muster is a willingness to face God squarely and show her how angry I am at her.

And when I do this, running deep beneath my anger is the confidence that God pays attention.

If one can't get mad at God, what sort of relationship does one have with God anyway?

Words with friends

1/10/2014

While sipping a hot cup of Ten Ren King's tea and chatting with a dear friend from the San Francisco Bay Area on Facebook, my friend wrote this to me:

"kate, I am so happy for you - it seems your life is developing in amazing ways"

(NB: The editor in me would like to capitalize and punctuate that sentence, but the friend in me knows better.)

My friend is right, you know. I'm struck by how very much my life has changed in a very, very short period of time.

I started this blog/site two years ago today. I wrote this:

Hurrah! Thanks to the inspiration of a dear friend of mine, Noach, I have planted the seed of this blog (and broader website). I hope it will yield many vibrant, lush, delicious fruits, and perhaps yield some long-lasting connections in the process.

Is it any surprise that the same friend who helped me plant this seed of a website and blog is now bursting with joy for me at what has risen up from the dark, fertile soil of my dreams and yearning?

I look back at the woman I was in 2012--a first time mom; an office manager at a small synagogue; a frustrated, well-educated, sad, and increasingly jaded Roman Catholic--and I see someone who knew that 2012 was a beginning rather than an end. I had no real idea of where the road would lead, but I knew I would be creating the road for myself as I went along, and that I would visit some unusual and unfamiliar places along the way.

My mantra lately, when folks ask me how I like Arizona, is, "I never thought I'd like living in the desert." But I do. My family is happy here. My husband has a job in which he thrives. I'm able to be at home with my girls for now, do fun-to-me gigs, and write to my heart's content. And finally, at long last, I get to be a both-feet-all-the-way-in member of a religious community in which I am valued, period--no strings attached, no hidden agendas, no glass ceiling. I love this community so much that my heart aches, as if it might burst. It's like being home again, but it's more than that. I'm not just part of the beauty that is my new community; I'm becoming a leader in bringing forth that beauty. Me. A woman. A thirty-something from Ohio who very early on learned to shut up and take it when something or someone wasn't good enough, even when what was good enough was within my reach, and even when what wasn't good enough was sanctioned by my religious leaders.

Two years later, in 2014, I find myself in the midst of imperfect, beautiful people, and just by being my own imperfect self, I am amazing. I am vibrant. I am what I was searching for two years ago. It just took being planted in a fertile garden, free of choking weeds, for me to see myself stretched up tall and completely radiant for the first time.

O Clavis David: Advent, Week 3, Friday

12/20/2013

December 20

O clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel: qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris.

O Key of David, and scepter of the house of Israel, who opens and no one shuts, who shuts and no one opens: come, and lead forth the captive who sits in the shadows from his prison.

Keys open and lock doors.

I remember the day the doors of Historic St. Peter Church of Cleveland were locked, by order of the bishop of the diocese. I was standing outside along with my many fellow parishioners as our pastor followed orders. It was the closing of a tomb that had once been a stable. That day haunts me.

I have never understood--and I'm sure I never will understood--the bullying of that bishop.

Last night, while singing carols with the St. Brigid's Community of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Tempe, I came across my very favorite Christmas hymn, written by Richard Wilbur. I asked if anyone knew it, and no one did.

It turns out that the version printed in the Hymnal 1982 is not the same version that I learned at St. Peter as a member of the choir early last decade. My usual search tricks failed in the effort to find a recording of it. The CD recorded by the choir (while I was studying in Berlin in 2002) is no longer for sale, either. Though the building is still there, and though the bishop was ordered by the Vatican to reopen its doors, the community that once worshiped there, the people who refused to be scattered, took roots elsewhere in the city, and there they remain, for the most part.

This is a beautiful recording, but it is not the one I learned in the midst of that beautiful community, and I can't help feeling tremendous loss as I listen to it.

Love burns in my heart for the community of St. Peter, that breathtaking icon of God. But even in my anger, my hope refuses to be extinguished.

A stable lamp is lighted
whose glow shall wake the sky;
the stars shall bend their voices,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
and straw like gold shall shine;
a barn shall harbour heaven,
a stall become a shrine.

This child through David's city
shall ride in triumph by;
the palm shall strew its branches,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
though heavy, dull and dumb,
and lie within the roadway
to pave his kingdom come.

Yet he shall be forsaken,
and yielded up to die;
the sky shall groan and darken,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
for gifts of love abused;
God's blood upon the spearhead,
God's blood again refused.

But now, as at the ending,
the low is lifted high;
the stars shall bend their voices,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
in praises of the child
by whose descent among us
the worlds are reconciled.