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| J. Kirk Richards |
O Emmanuel
O come, O come, and be our
God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world
without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of
light.
Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken
Name
Come Root, and Key, and King, and
holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly
curled,
Be folded with us into time and
place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded
world.
O heart of heaven beating in the
earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our
birth,
To touch a dying world with
new-made hands
And make these rags of time our
swaddling bands.
Malcolm Guite
“O
tiny hope within our hopelessness”. I love how the life of Jesus curls both inward and outward in this poem. Mysteries within mysteries, but at the same time, revelations opening into wider and yet wider horizons. Foldings and unfoldings. So beautiful. Like the whorls of shells or the swirling stars, all these seem to speak of the same pattern, the same name. Unspoken, but singing out through everything.
