Hymn To Matter Blessed be you, harsh matter, barren soil, stubborn rock: you who yield only to violence;
You who force us to work if we would eat.Blessed be you, perilous matter, violent sea, untameable passion;You who unless we fetter you will devour us.Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn;
You who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth.Blessed be you, universal matter, unmeasurable time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations;
You who by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards of measurement reveal to us the dimensions of God.Responsive Reading 549, in Singing the Living Tradition (Beacon Press, 1993),
from Hymn of the Universe, (1961), English translation, 1965
"I am now giving you the choice between life and death, between God's blessing and God's curse, and I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Choose life."Deuteronomy XXX, 19
(Today's English Version):
Hanging On
By Veronica Daley"If you love something, set it free."1
" . . . to love and let go again and again."2
Not me. I want to hang on,
cling deliberately,
till there's dirt beneath my nails.Recall with relish the feel of thin frame
pulled in tight against my mother curves.
Skinny arms wrapped tight around my neck.Sense the smell and feel of hair
warmed in the golden sunlight
when resisting the urge to touch.Trace the curve of neck and shoulder
in your mind. Anticipate the rough brush
of beard on cheek the next time.Snuggle deeply under a blanket
that holds the scent of one you love
while they are away.I yearn and urge all the earthly pleasures
now available to me. I won't let go
until I'm set free from this earth
Let go again?
Not yet. Not me.� Veronica Daley
1. Richard Bach's Jonathon Livingston Seagull.
2. Marge Piercy's To Have Without Holding.
