Friday, November 2, 2012

The Liturgy of Roadkill

"Carrion" is a pretty word for an ugly thing: roadkill. In my poetry class on Thursday, we read a beautiful poem by Gerard Mansley Hopkins called, "Carrion Comfort," about those times you feel hopeless, like roadkill is the best you'll ever get in life and it's God's fault. I want to write liturgy using this poem, while interweaving it with (mostly) Bible verses. I don't know if this would ever work in church. It might be too raw or too obscure. But it still seems cool. The whole time in class I kept thinking how cool this would be for liturgy. I had to get it out. So here goes:
L: Let us come before the Lord with open, honest hearts.
C: Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee.
L: For in hope we were saved.
C: Not untwist-- slack they may be-- these last strands of man in me.
L: We have this hope, sure and steadfast, the anchor of our souls.
C: Nor, most weary, cry I can no more
L: We can do all things through Christ who gives us strength.
C: I can, can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
L: Hope in the Lord! For you shall praise him.
C: But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me thy wring-world right foot rock?
L: Blessed be God! He has not rejected our prayers or removed his steadfast love from us. 
C: Why lean a lionlamb against me? Why scan with darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones?
L: Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
C: Why fan, O turns in tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?
L: His mercies are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness!
C: Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clean?
L: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those that love him.
C: Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, hand rather.
L: You hem us in, behind and before, you lay your hand upon us.
C: Lo! I lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer. Cheer whom though?
L: Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high, I cannot attain it.
C: Cheer the Hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot-trod me?
L: He will never, ever abandon you nor forsake you.
C: Or me that fought him? O which one? Is it each one?
L: I pray that you will, together with all the saints, know what is the height and the depth and the width of his love.
C: Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.
L: This is our God, forever and ever, and surely he will be our guide even to the end.
All: Amen

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