My friend and sister blogger, Maren, never fails to inspire, convict or challenge me. I look forward to her blog posts, knowing that by the end, I will find myself in a gasp, or at least a sigh. She is gifted at helping her readers stay in touch with the current angst of the times, the events and realities of our world. This is her latest post:
My little hand holds (and not the great world)
the small shining of shook foil
and there is no beauty that I see,
only the blankets on children detained —
alone and frightened, cold,
and without care,
without — O you grand and broken God,
toothpaste and soap,
and parents,
without justice, compassion,
but not without hope,
because that alone, hope
is never spent, but lights the western sky
as night falls
on the long walk from the south,
even if dimly, touches
with fingers a rim of east
every morning, every detention center.
Hope brought them here
to the terrible inhospitality
that smears
all this country ever thought to be.
And it is left to us and the Holy Spirit
to brood
over those who are lost,
and bend the world
so that the living children
might someday be found
by bright wings.
And here is where it grabbed my heart . . .
What does it mean for me to join with the Holy Breath of Life “to brood over those who are lost, and bend the world?” What would that look like? How do I do it? Does it mean to “brood” over the lostness of our world and call forth life?
What a need that is! How desperately we need to bend the world toward mercy and justice. To lift up the children who sleep on cold concrete floors. To lift them high above the world’s cruelty to the place of “bright wings!”
May God help us to comprehend the brooding Spirit and her open arms. And may she reach down to grab us and hold us up inside the wind that heals.
Maren C. Tirabassi served as local church pastor in the United Church of Christ for thirty-seven years in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Â She is the author or editor of twenty books. Visit her blog at:
https://giftsinopenhands.wordpress.com/2019/06/26/prayer-for-the-immigration-crisis-an-homage-to-gerard-manley-hopkins-gods-grandeur/
God of the Sparrow 🌱 By Kathy Manis Findley 
Thank you so much, Kathy, for sharing this post which was inspired by Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur” that gentle poem. I find my resistance to the terrible things that happen in our name is weary and, though I do not have any of the deep limitations that your waiting time brings, my COPD and cardiac concerns and arthritis make me not so much the activist I once was. But still so very surely the Spirit moves incessantly when it cannot be so powerfully.
God willing, and surely God is willing. Thank you again.
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