Our Practice this Lent
Scroll down to find links to the poems.
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This Lent, we will share a common practice guided by Wendell Berry and the Sabbath Poetry of Lent, a booklet of scripture, poetry, reflection, and daily practices to move us through this rich season. We will use it to pray and practice at home on our own and, for those who want to, come together as a community to reflect on how the Spirit is guiding us through this practice.
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We will meet every Friday in March at 6:30 p.m. in Springwater Studio to drink tea, talk, and listen for the Spirit in one another. That's March 6, 13, 20 & 27.
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The booklets are available in the Narthex on Sundays or in the church office during the week during office hours. You don't have to be part of the group to participate. Feel free to take a booklet and practice on your own.
The Poems
From Wendell Berry's This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems
You can buy the book at Powell's downtown and Hawthorne locations, on the Powell's website, or on bookshop.org.
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ASH WEDNESDAY:
I would not have been a poet…154
By its own logic greed….328 (scroll down to poem in English)
FIRST SUNDAY of LENT:
I go among trees and sit still…. 7
A young man leaving home….249
The bell calls in the town…11
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SECOND SUNDAY of LENT:
Again I resume the long….201
Learn by little the desire for all things….312
Eternity is not infinity…274
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THIRD SUNDAY of LENT:
How long does it take to make the woods?...67
Here where the world is being made….33
The difference is a polished….202
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FOURTH SUNDAY of LENT:
Remembering that it happened once….80
Coming to the woods’ edge….73
Six days of work are spent….29 (scroll down to the second poem)
The frog with lichened back and golden thigh…..28
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FIFTH SUNDAY of LENT:
What hard travail God does in death…25
Life forgives its depredations…68
And now the lowland grove is down, the trees…77
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PALM SUNDAY:
Slowly, slowly, they return…71
It’s Spring. The birds sing….379
Off in the woods in the quiet….367
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MAUNDY THURSDAY:
Since, despite the stern demands….383
Though his tenure on this earth….377 (two pages)
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GOOD FRIDAY:
It is the destruction of the world…82
In early morning we awaken from….87
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EASTER:
Early in the year by my friend’s gift….329
After windstorm and ice storm….331
The little stream sings….241
The politics of illusion, of death’s money… 242