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Dear Ones of Christ Church,
In the convergence of Easter Week, Earth Day (April 22nd), and the death of Pope Francis, whose legacy includes his encyclical Laudato Si’, a theological call for a global ecological and environmental conversion, I encountered the poem “Invocation,” by New Bedford poet Everett Hoagland, in his poetry collection The Ways. Sometimes poems come along at the right time. I am always grateful when they do. Hoagland’s poem—which is also a prayer—will likely reappear in my sermon this weekend, in connection with the events of this week and our lectionary readings. For now, I invite you to pray with “Invocation.” What stands out to you? How does this prayer-poem speak to you, about God, creation, and we human creatures?
Yours in Christ,
Melissa +
“Invocation” by Everett Hoagland
Architect of icebergs, snowflakes,
crystals, rainbows, sand grains, dust motes, atoms.
Mason whose tools are glaciers, rain, rivers, ocean.
Chemist who made blood
of seawater, bone of minerals in stone, milk
of love. Whatever
You are, I know this,
Spinner, You are everywhere, in All The Ever-
Changing Above, whirling around us.
Yes, in the loose strands,
in the rough weave of the common
cloth threaded with our DNA on the hubbed, spoked
Spinning Wheel that is this world, solar system, galaxy,
universe.
Help us to see ourselves in all creation,
and all creation in ourselves, ourselves in one another.
Remind those of us who like connections
made with similes, metaphors, symbols
all of us are, everything is
already connected.
Remind us as oceans go, so go we. As the air goes, so go we.
As other life forms on Earth go, so go we.
As our planet goes, so go we. Great Poet,
who inspired In The Beginning was The Word . . . ,
edit our thought so our ethics are our politics,
and our actions the afterlives of our words.
Source: The Ways: Poems of Affirmation, Remembrance, Reflection and Wonder (North Star Nova Press, 2022). Originally published in Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology (University of Georgia Press, 2018).
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