Praise to God, Immortal Praise

Praise to God, immortal praise,
For the love that crowns our days;
Bounteous Source of every joy,
Let Thy praise our tongues employ.
Flocks that whiten all the plain;
Yellow sheaves of ripened grain;
Clouds that drop their fattening dews,
Sun that temperate warmth diffuses.
All that Spring with bounteous hand
Scatters o’er the smiling land;
All that liberal Autumn pours
From her rich o’erflowing stores.
These to Thee, my God, we owe,
Source whence all our blessings flow;
And for these my soul shall raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise.

Yet, should rising whirlwinds tear
From its stem the ripening ear;
Should the fig tree’s blasted shoot*
Drop her green untimely fruit,
Should the vine put forth no more,
Nor the olive yield her store;
Though the sickening flocks should fall,
And the herds desert the stall,
Yet to Thee my soul shall raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise;
And, when every blessing’s flown
Love Thee for Thyself alone.**
---An­na L. Bar­bauld, 1772 (adapted c.m.b. 2008)

*Habakkuk 3:17-19 (a near paraphrase). After chapters of asking "How, God?" and "Why, God?"---and getting answers from God!!---Habakkuk makes this statement of faith. [Habakkuk ties another as my favorite book of the Bible]
**Christian thinkers, C.S. Lewis included, have said that as we mature in our faith, we love God for who He is and not just for the great benefits of heaven which we get from Him

The Moon

The Moon was but a chin of gold*
A night or two ago,
And now she turns her perfect face
Upon the world below.

Her forehead is of amplest blond*;
Her cheek like beryl* stone;
Her eye unto the summer dew
The likest I have known.

Her lips of amber* never part;
But what must be the smile
Upon her friend she could bestow
Were such her silver will.

And what a privilege to be
But the remotest star!
For certainly her way might pass
Beside your twinkling door.

Her bonnet is the firmament,
The universe her shoe,
The stars the trinkets at her belt,
Her dimities** of blue.
---Emily Dickinson

*Imagery for the moon is usually "silvery." This uses more of the "yellow", and sometimes the Moon (esp. when full) does have a yellowish cast
**Dimity: A sheer, crisp (double-threaded; "di") cotton fabric. It is woven with raised stripes or checks and was used mostly for dresses or curtains.

Children of the Heavenly Father

Children of the Heavenly Father
Safely in His bosom gather;
Nestling bird nor star in heaven*
Such a refuge e'er was given.

God His own doth tend and nourish
In His holy courts they flourish.
From all evil things He spares them**;
In His mighty arms He bears them.

Neither life nor death shall ever
From the Lord His children sever**.
Unto them His grace He showeth
And their sorrows all He knoweth.

Though He giveth or He taketh
God His children ne'er forsaketh***;
His the loving purpose solely
To preserve them pure and holy.

---Karoline Sandell-Berg (Swedish), 1858; translated Ernst W. Olson

*Jesus said, "Aren't two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will. And even the hairs of your head are numbered. So stop being afraid: you are worth much more than many sparrows." Matthew 10:30. (Another song verse not given here--because it was clumsy in its translation---speaks of the numbering of the hairs.)
**Romans 8:28-39. God brings good out of all things and nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even death.
***When Job's first troubles came, he responded by saying, "Naked came I from my mother's womb and naked shall I return there [the dark "womb" of the grave]. Yahweh gives and He takes away; blessed be the Name of Yahweh." Job 1:21.

If Only...

[This prose is almost poetic.]

If only Adam hadn't sinned, humanity would have recognized God in all creatures and would have love and praised Him so that even in the smallest blossom they would have seen and pondered His power, grace, and wisdom. But who can fathom how from the barren earth God creates so many kinds of flowers of such lovely colors and sweet scent, as no painter or alchemist could make? Yet God can bring forth from the earth green, yellow, red, blue, brown, and every kind of color. All these things would have turned the mind of Adam and his kin to honor God and glorify and praise Him and to enjoy His creatures with gratitude. ---Martin Luther ("Table Talk" 4.198, Weimar)

But through sin and the fall we humans have become so weakened, so poisoned and corrupted in body, soul, eyes, ears and everywhere that our sense are not the 100th part as sharp as were Adam's before the fall. Our bodies are unclean, and all creatures have become subject to futility (Romans 8). The [16th century!] sun, moon, stars, clouds, air, earth and water are no longer so pure and beautiful and lovely as they were [before sin]. But on that [last] day, all things will be made new and will once more be beautiful, as St. Paul says, Romans 8: "Creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." ---Martin Luther (Weimar 44.231ff)

America the Beautiful

(These sentiments are more noble---and certainly more Christian*---than modern America deserves. And, yet, pockets of America still live this out beautifully.)

O beautiful, for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace* on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood**,
from sea to shining sea.

Colorado Rockies front range (see below)

O beautiful, for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw*;
Confirm thy soul in self control**,
 thy liberty in law!

O beautiful, for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy* more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine**,
'Til all success be nobleness,
and ev'ry gain divine**!

O beautiful, for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years,
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
 God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood**,
from sea to shining sea! --- Katharine Lee Bates, English professor at Wellesley College around 4 July, 1893  (on a trip from the east coast to Colorado Springs)

*While "Jesus" & being "saved from sin" are not clearly spelled out in this poem/song, they underlie these thoughts quire clearly
**The work of the Holy Spirit, who works in Christians to do better things and creates a true brotherhood

Change & the Comfort of the Resurrection

(from the longer poem "That Nature is a Heraclitean (1) Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection.")

...Vastness blurs and time beats level. Enough! the Resurrection
A heart's clarion (2)! Away grief's grasping, joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck (3) shone
A beacon, and eternal beam. Flesh fade, and mortal trash
Fall to the residuary worm; world's wildfire, leave but ash (1):
In a flash, at a trumpet crash (4)
I am all at once what Christ is, since He was what I am, and
this Jack(5), joke poor potsherd, patch(6), matchwood, immortal diamond
Is immortal diamond.(7)
---Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1888

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Manley_Hopkins

(1) Heraclitus [(c) 535-(c) 475 B.C.); Greek philosopher who taught that the basis of all existence was change or "fire." "Strife" changes fire into water, water into earth, and then the process reversed. Hopkins didn't truly believe this philosophy but used it to symbolize the change of the corrupted nature and of the corrupting body in the grave into something immortal & beautiful (Diamonds also come out of the earth & are processed by fire.)
(2) Clarion--a clear, trumpet-like, beckoning call
(3) Foundering deck: shipwreck as a symbol of death. (Again, the "water.")
(4) Trumpet: borrowed directly from II Corinthians 15:25.
(5) "Jack": common fellow; this name was well-used in England.
(6) Patch (archaic): fool, ninny; also, a detached piece, a make-shift fragment, such as the potsherd Job used to scrape his sores (Job 2:8)
(7) "Immortal Diamond": Hopkins, as a Roman Catholic, believed that people carried the "scintilla", the spark of original good, within themselves, even after Sin entered the world. As a Lutheran, I take the immortal diamond, already there alongside the corrupt things, to be the new person that is created in Christ when the person is saved. (The term "immortal diamond" has also been used as a title for Hopkins himself.)

Holy God, We Praise Your Name

[a hymnodic paraphrase of the ancient chant, the Te Deum]

Holy God, we praise Your Name;
Lord of all, we bow before You!
All on earth Your scepter claim*,
All in Heaven above adore You;
Infinite Your vast domain,
Everlasting is Your reign.

1760 Anglican Book of Common Prayer, adapted

Hark! the loud celestial hymn
Angel choirs above are raising,
Cherubim and seraphim,
In unceasing chorus praising;
Fill the heavens with sweet accord:
Holy, holy, holy, Lord.

Lo! the apostolic train
Join the sacred Name to hallow;
Prophets swell the loud refrain,
And the white robed martyrs** follow;
And from morn to set of sun,
Through the Church the song goes on.

You are King of glory, Christ:
Son of God, yet born of Mary;
For us sinners sacrificed,
Bringing us a sanctuary:
First to break the bars of death,
You have opened Heaven to faith.

Therefore do we pray You, Lord:
Help Your servants whom, redeeming
By Your precious blood out-poured,
You have saved from Satan’s scheming.
Give to them eternal rest
In the glory of the blest.

Spare Your people, Lord, we pray,
By a thousand snares surrounded:
Keep us from falling away,
Never let us be confounded.
See, I put my trust in You:
Guide my footsteps in all that I do.

Holy Father, Holy Son, Holy Spirit,
Three we name You;
While in essence only One,
Undivided God we claim You;
And adoring bend the knee,
While we own the mystery.
---Ignaz Franz (German), 1774; adapted Marie Byars, 2008

*more specifically, all of nature & all the saved acknowledge Him willingly now; someday, everyone will be made to acknowledge Him
**"martyrs": those who died as a result of their faith, giving a powerful Christian witness. ("Martyros" in Greek originally meant "witness.")