WEek three of Ordinary time

by Bruce Benedict

X of The Sabbath Poems

 by Wendell Berry (1979)

Whatever is foreseen in joy

Must be lived out from day to day.

Vision held open in the dark

By our ten thousand days of work.

Harvest will fill the barn; for that

The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled

By work of ours; the field is tilled

And left to grace. That we may reap, 

Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood

Rests on our day, and finds it good. 

---

In Wendell Berry’s sabbath poem ‘X’ (1979), a short meditation on work and sabbath, he shapes the life of toil as “ten-thousand days of work.” Figuring in Sundays and holidays that’s about thirty years time! A few years back Malcolm Gladwell, in his book ‘Outliers,' posited that it takes ten-thousand hours to become a master of something. When I think about ten-thousand my mind usually hums the anonymous verse that often concludes John Newton’s Amazing Grace, where ten-thousand captures something of the infinity of joyful worship that awaits us in heaven.

“When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise,

Than when we first begun."

Measuring time is something that humans obsess over, and as I type this we are preparing to enter into the third week of Ordinary Time.  It's been challenging in this season to mark time with God.  Sabbaths absent from church family, forced furloughs, and altered rhythms all complicate the already hard work of trying to pursue God's gift of rest.  Shalom feels far away. So I've been leaning hard on voices older and wiser than my own.  Revisiting bits of text and song that have been pointers towards God's peace in past seasons of my life.  I love this simple prayer that I tuned for a Cardiphonia compilation "Among the Thorns" a few years back, and it bites even deeper as we till up the moral brownfields of our national past with hopes of a more just and vibrant future.  

Your Word alone gives needed power to strengthen weary hands

And helps us see in each new day the way of your commands.

But you have taught that love is feigned that fails a neighbor’s need,

That faith we claim is false until your Word becomes our deed.

We thank you, Lord, for quiet time to cast our care on you

and for your Word that follows us when work becomes our prayer. 

Prayer

O Lord God, grant us peace, for you have supplied us with all things —the peace of rest, the peace of eternal Sabbath in you, which has no evening; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.   --- Augustine

Musical Meditation

“Lord, Grant Us Grace to Know the Time”, from “Among the Thorns, Music: Bruce Benedict, 2017. Text: “Lord, Grant Us Grace to Know the Time” by Herman G. Stuempfle, © 1997, GIA Publications, https://cardiphonia.bandcamp.com/track/grant-us-grace

Visual Art

Sayde Anderson