Marjorie J. Thompson
Ah, God!
When I look at what your fingers fashion,
who am I?
Who are we?
Artist Supreme,
painting color, shape,
texture new each hour
as created light,
your subtle and astonishing servant,
passes over
and through each thing.
You alone have power
to create ex nihilo afresh,
Yet you give us power
to become your own
sons and daughters,
creative joy imprinted
on our souls in the indelible
ink of your love.
For you love inspired beauty
and share what you love
with whom you love.
Ah, God!
How my soul thirsts
for beauty!
How my heart opens
to the pulse of your fullness
when I drink
in the wonder,
the wonder,
your fingerprints everywhere.
I touch them,
let their curving, tender lines guide
my hands that add
tentative strokes to your canvas.
Can it be true,
you want to create
through us?
You are creating still, and we
frail creatures wrought
by your heart’s caress,
bear now the threads of your
unfolding handiwork.
Ah, God!
Can it be right to crave
such beauty
when people shrivel, starve.
seeking only simple life?
Are we not bidden to the labor of artless
unadorned virtue?
Oh, my child!
Do you not see?
It is in darkness you must
gain the eye for beauty.
How shall you know the delight
of goodness but as it shines
against hardened hearts?
How feel the joy
of light except as it sparkles
through the shadowed land?
It is here in this world
of fearful gloom
that my creation will continue to burst
forth from the tomb.
And you, dear heart,
let it burst from your soul,
spirit mirroring my glory.
From Weavings: A Journal for the Christian Spiritual Life, March/April 2002 (Vol. 17, No. 2). Copyright © 2001 by The Upper Room.
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