Sabbath Day II

So I also, always, read poetry on my Sabbath Day – even on those days when I don’t take a sabbath but go to work.

While I was waiting for August after school today – he stayed an extra hour for his first meeting with the “Mad Scientists Club” – I opened the new biography of Dorothee Soelle. This was just published last week, and is written by Renata Wind (who also wrote a nice volume on Bonhoeffer).

Chapter one begins with Dorothee’s poem, “Dream Me, God.” It immediately spoke to me in relation to my sermon on Psalm 1 last week, Beldan Lane’s suggestion that trees be included in the communio sanctorum, and the tree planting ceremonies which are taking place at this time in White Plains, the ‘City of Trees.’ Here it is:

Dream Me, God

It’s not you who should solve my problems, God,

but I yours, God of the asylum-seekers.

It’s not you who should feed the hungry,

but I who should protect your children

from the terror of the banks and armies.

It’s not you who should make room for the refugees,

but I who should receive you,

hardly hidden God of the desolate.

You dreamed me, God,

practicing walking upright

and learning to kneel down

more beautiful than I am now,

happer than I dare to be

freer than our country allows.

Don’t stop dreaming me, God.

I don’t want to stop remembering

that I am your tree,

planted by the streams

of living water.

The book is called Dorothee Soelle – Mystic and Rebel: The Biography by Renate Wind. Fortress Press, 2012. If you are ordering from amazon, please enter through the “give” page of my church website and a contribution will be made to our ministry. This opportunity is available anytime you shop amazon.