On the day of the funeral service for my mother, after I had led the service, I came across the following poem from Wendell Berry's collection A Timbered Choir": The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997 that spoke to me.
A gracious Sabbath stood here while they stood
Who gave our rest a haven.
Now fallen, they are given
To labor and distress.
These times we know much evil, little good
To steady us in faith
And comfort when our losses press
Hard on us, and when we choose,
In panic or despair or both,
To keep what we will lose.
For we are fallen like the trees, our peace
Broken, and so we must
Love where we cannot trust,
Trust where we cannot know,
And must await the wayward-coming grace
That joins living and dead,
Taking us where we would not go -
Into the boundless dark.
When what was made has been unmade
The Maker comes to his work.
(A Timbered Choir": The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997, II 1985)
A gracious Sabbath stood here while they stood
Who gave our rest a haven.
Now fallen, they are given
To labor and distress.
These times we know much evil, little good
To steady us in faith
And comfort when our losses press
Hard on us, and when we choose,
In panic or despair or both,
To keep what we will lose.
For we are fallen like the trees, our peace
Broken, and so we must
Love where we cannot trust,
Trust where we cannot know,
And must await the wayward-coming grace
That joins living and dead,
Taking us where we would not go -
Into the boundless dark.
When what was made has been unmade
The Maker comes to his work.
(A Timbered Choir": The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997, II 1985)
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