my burg

There are many prayers in Augustine's Confessions (c. AD 400).  All through his written journey he talks to God.  In Book I he begins with, "...you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you."  And, “On your exceedingly great mercy rests all my hope.  Grant what you command, and command what you will.”  (Confessions, X:29)     Here is a prayer from Book X:69-70 that I've adapted for congregational use, perhaps before Communion:    “How you have loved us, O good Father, who did not spare your only Son, but delivered him up for us who are wicked! How you have loved us, for whom your Son became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross! He had power to lay down his life and power to take it up again, and for us he became to you both Victor and Victim. For us, he became both Priest and Sacrifice. Out of slavery he made us your sons.  Our hope is fixed upon him, who will heal all our diseases, who sits at your right hand and int

60. Fiddler Jones [ an epitaph ] THE EARTH keeps some vibration going  There in your heart, and that is you.  And if the people find you can fiddle,  Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.  What do you see, a harvest of clover?  Or a meadow to walk through to the river?  The wind’s in the corn; you rub your hands  For beeves hereafter ready for market;  Or else you hear the rustle of skirts  Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.  To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust  Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;  They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy  Stepping it off, to “Toor-a-Loor.”  How could I till my forty acres Not to speak of getting more,  With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos  Stirred in my brain by crows and robins  And the creak of a wind-mill­only these?  And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road  And take me away to a dance or picnic.  I ended up with forty acres;  I ended up with a broken fiddle­  And