Failure/ Revelation

The choir children fill this sanctuary vast
With voice of babes clung to angels' wings,
Piercing in their highs my defensive walls
Upheld by sinful ways of old.
"Libera nos, Domine... Domine..."
Ah, yes! Yes, my Lord, their prayer rings true,
For that is the cry not of a mere child
But of all created thing, and of me.
Though what am I but a child?
Cast us not from your presence,
Take us not from your sight,
But hold fast in your fatherly arms
All that you have created, all that is,
And all that is us, for we know not what we do.

As I reach for something else,
As I turn to something not you 
That I think is,
I nail another nail into this disfigured branch,
Into your flesh, your bones,
Shattering the truth that came for us,
And yet revealing it all so clearly
And all the more with each fell stroke.
Here you stay. Here you remain with me.
Here you are in the rising Son of your glory,
And I don't understand:
How could they kill God?
And how could I?
Yet I do each day with each passing failure and loss.
Still he loves me. He looks down with compassion
From that forsaken tree and his eyes proclaim
What was from the beginning: "This is for you."

Tears, I know nothing but.
Tears of sorrow, self-awareness, and heart-broken joy.
For this is not his last look: he comes in vindication
In a glory that causes me not to recognize him
On account of my own blind heart's fear.
But each day as we gather 'round the baquet table
Of the Lamb, we are taught here again
What it is to be, what it is to receive.
And then we know: "My Lord and my God."