Rachel Allord

This is the time to rediscover

Old books, old movies, old games, each other

How technology connects us and less can sustain

How sunshine, bloom, wind, and rain

Are gifts.

 

This is the time to reorder

Our shelves and closets and drawers jammed with junk.

Our muddled thoughts and careless words

Our misplaced priorities, erroneous expectations

and presumed rights of what life should be.

 

This is the time to resist

Face touching, handrails, shared food, sleepovers

Extremes of ‘it’s nothing’ and ‘all’s lost’

Fear, panic, hoarding, hopelessness

Blaming, shaming, authority berating

 

This is the time to recognize

Our frailty and feebleness

Mortality and brevity

That control is illusion

and good plans do crumble

and days will run out

From dust we began, from dust we will end

 

This is the time to respond

by letter, phone, facetime or prayer

To that faraway brother or neighbor next door

To those niggling convictions we kept pushing aside

To the offer for water that never runs dry,

the invite for feasting,

the calling to die,

to the Father who waits for his child to arrive

 

This is the time to repent

Of thanklessness, selfishness

Know-it-all-ness, pride

Of self.

To let the light of Christ expose us

the Word of God slice through us

To call upon God while it is still light.

 

This is the time to receive

The blood of Christ and garments of white

Forgiveness from God and Spirit rich life

Peace that transcends us and contentment in strife

Grace to endure

Courage to combat

Hope that’s secure

Love that’s immortal

 

This is the time for revival,

For earnest pure prayer

for dry bones to dance

For mustard seeds to sprout and extend

For our hearts, oh Church, to break and to bleed,

to be bound up and shifted, bared open and freed.

 

May our revival that is small and unseen

ignite a harvest of righteousness to glean for this is the time.

This is the time.