HOW GREAT THOU ART
For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
Psalm 86: 10 - 13 (ESV)
Strange Greatness
I found God once
In the shade of a magnolia tree,
Where summer’s carefreeness and the flower’s endurance
Divulged secrets of greatness.
A quiet liberation.
I met God again
Mid-winter,
When the white that cloaked my world
Shifted
From suffocating storm
To endless purity
Falling and filling wherever there was open space.
A soft whisper.
I saw God in a roving machine on Mars,
In science and mechanics and
Minds I do not understand.
The joy of exploration
Carried on currents
Of perseverance.
A searching, a finding.
I think I heard God once in a flock of geese.
A quirky chorus, out of tune, but
“Let the creatures sing what they wish!”
I agree.
A freedom, an autonomy.
I think I see God
Mostly in Jesus.
The lowliness draws my attention.
The kindness, the weeping, the feasting,
The breaking of traditions.
The befriending, the tending, the walking.
Then there’s the dying
The bleeding
The lack of retaliating.
A slow letting go
Of the body, the spirit.
The greatness nobody expected.
The hero nobody wanted.
The only one there will ever be.
Jessica Cotten