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Stephanos
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0 posted 2000-09-19 10:29 PM


Pilgrimage Psalm

In my heart are the highways to Zion.
How I long to make pilgrimage there.
It’s joyful feasts have been beckoning me
though my neighbors incline not to care.
The courts of the Lord in their splendour
remain the delight of the Earth.
And who can tell of the halcyon joys
concealed in their chambers of worth?
Come let us set out together
in passage with tenor of mind.
Ponder in anticipation with me
of mercies perchance we will find.
Since the Lord abounds ever with goodness
arduous travel cannot be in vain.
Though crossing the valley of Baca
we shall be swept beneath torrents of rain.
Even now the wind whispers its advent
gently caressing the heat sweltered face,
cooling the Shulamite’s sun darkened skin
and alluring her unto embrace.
Will she turn at his voice, her beloved’s
ruefully stirred by the sight of his hand
motioning her through the latch of the door?
Will she search through the streets of the land?
Will the people of God love their King more than ease
and arise from their bed chamber shrouds,
seeking “one greater than” Solomon’s type
who is promised to come in the clouds?
As a curtain you stretch out the heavens
laying the waters above for your beams.
The billowing mists are your chariot wheels
your cumulus robe has no seams.
And yet we would say “Rend the heavens again.
Let the rain of the latter days fall.
As deep unto deep let your thunders resound
in response to a spiritual call
which is mounting among “not a people”
desperately scattered like matinal dew,
whose goodness has been as a mid-morning cloud.
And yet our great hope is in you
to take of our lives, each a vapor
and make of them something more grand.
We know that the breadth of the seashore itself
is built of mere granules of sand.
And lights in the vault of the heavens
ever declaring their creator’s worth,
clustered in myriad trillions of bands,
appear small from the standpoint of Earth.
As Abram believed on the promises
given to him and to all of his seed,
lay righteousness Lord to your children today
and be moved by our measure of need.
For doubtless you still are our father
though Abraham we have not known,
though Israel seems but an entity past
a temple with glory cloud gone.
Your mercy to men is forever
gracious redeemer whose excellent name
is called by your saints everlasting and true
from age unto ages the same.
How lovely Oh Lord are the tents where you dwell,
your beautiful place of repose.
The wilderness lands shall rejoice once again
with the blossoms of mandrake and rose.
Let us proceed to the temple mount praising
with timbrels and trembling hearts
as the flashing of dark condensation begins
and the lashing of heavy rain starts.
Of unrestrained downpours and showers
we shall guzzle from runlets and streams
with more than enough for ourselves and the world
exceeding our most holy dreams.
In a mystery we are the clouds of the Lord
in which he is bound to appear,
the body of Christ to attest in the Earth
that the Kingdom of God has come near.
In our hearts are the highways to Zion.
For the courts of the Lord we will pine
even faint to behold in the land of the living
the reign of Messiah divine.                
           SDJ 4/2000

(This is one I wrote intentionally in the spirit of the psalms of the Old Testament.  Much of the Imagery is from the OT, and this psalm is inspired by Psalm 84)

© Copyright 2000 Stephen Douglas Jones - All Rights Reserved
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