Reader Writes - March 2019

A lament for the Earth with tribute to Job.

Oh Lord, you stretched a line across the foundation of the earth;

You made the morning stars sing and the angels shout for joy.

Who has comprehended the vast expanses of your creation?

How wonderful are its ways; we are silenced by its mysteries.

We count the stars of Orion and trace out the Bear with her cubs,

Where winter night skies are deep and dark, pouring forth your speech.

Mysterious the telling of the honey bee, old neighbours and strangers;

The endless web of life confounds and delights, brings tears of joy.

If you are the Creator of all this, Dear Lord, you could have made it just so,

Sans rules, outside and beyond mystery, just made it in the span of days.

But you forged something new, a universe of rules that we yearn to know;

Your endless genius commanded order, thermodynamics and planetary law.

The tiniest mycorrhiza beneath our feet rules the canopy above our head;

The bellowing stag, musky and gaunt, tiny actor, tramples the falling mast.

Secular scientists scorn your genius, but even Dawkins admits to the joy;

So thank you that the Adam and Eve in us yearns for divine friendship.

You put eternity in the hearts of men, made us endlessly restless for Thee,

Crowned us your special creature, appointed us your honoured steward.

But something went wrong, and shame on us all when we toiled ….and spoiled;

When Eden was betrayed and the birds of paradise fled our shadow.

We spread out over Babel’s blackened plain, pumping oil to reach the skies;

Oh Father, Creator of our mother earth, how we disdained to be comforted.

The earth is yours and all people therein, a little lower than the angels.

How have we done all this, knowingly, in the face of stark witness?

How did you vote in the great climate referendum Grandma? Where do we look?

Why do you turn away Grandpa? Have you left it too late for a world of hope?

If we repent, turn back, shake off complacency, will you help us Our Father?

Could we reform, put it right, would you shelter us from the storm?

“Come to me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” you say.

We are heavy laden; we lament for the wild green earth and our confused people.

Give us wisdom and courage, to see the walls and the wire, and turn back;

Let us choose the open spaces of ‘we’, defy the dark, together you and me.

Robert MacCurrach