When earth is standing dusty dry

When earth is standing dusty dry

We pray and plead for rain; 

And then when waters from the sky 

Bring flood and chaos, how we cry

For earth to dry again!

When will we learn? Oh, when?

 

This damaged earth has suffered so 

From schemes of our design. 

Yet, even when this truth we know, 

Our cravings will not let us go,

And nature we malign;

Our deeds are not benign.

 

These things we make unmake the earth; 

We kill it with our waste.

These creatures made with holy worth

Have no more place, but only dearth,

And fall away in haste, 

Their habitat debased.

 

Dear God! Will we yet spoil your world

Beyond what it can bear? 

Make us restrain, our wants in-curled,

Until with joy we see unfurled 

Creation everywhere.

Can we make this our prayer?

 

 

Text: Charles Spence Freeman, May 2023.

Music: Tune REPTON, C. Hubert H. Parry, 1888.

 

 

After a week spent driving halfway across the country, including through some particularly beautiful stretches I had not seen before, creation (and our spoilage of it) was on my mind, I guess. Exaggerated and unpredictable weather patterns are merely the tip of the iceberg, and it's hard to know if humanity has the will to rein in those behaviors that create such debasement of our planet and its climate. I'll never put it as eloquently as Bruce Cockburn does in his song "If a tree falls," but then that song would be harder for a congregation to sing, so there's that.