Sabbaths

I sang a setting of this Wendell Berry poem while in choir in college. At the time, I didn't fully grasp the beauty of the imagery and meaning of the song--they were just words that I had to sing. Now, over four years later, I still can't completely wrap my head around what this new creation will look like, but I have a deeper appreciation for the promise of beauty and renewal in this text.

Imagine--imagine watching the sun set over the ocean on a summer evening... a moment that takes your breath away, makes you marvel at God's handiwork and declare "truly, this is a beautiful world!" This is but a shadow of the new creation to come--once the veil of sin has been lifted, thrown off once and for all, we will see the world as it was intended to be seen, become more fully ourselves than we ever dared hope, and enjoy a beauty beyond our wildest reckoning. At that time, all of creation will cry out in praise to the Most High, whose majesty will be revealed in every last detail of that perfect splendor--the field, the woods and all in them.

"What Stood Will Stand" by Wendell Berry

What stood will stand, though all be fallen,
The good return that time has stolen.
Though creatures groan in misery,
Their flesh prefigures liberty
To end travail and bring to birth their new perfection in new earth.

At word of that enlivening
Let the trees of the woods all sing.
And every field rejoice, let praise
Rise up out of the ground like grass.
What stood - whole in every piecemeal thing that stood -
Will stand though all fall.
Field and woods and all in them,
Rejoin the primal Sabbath’s hymn.