God Goes Fishing

*** Revised Common Lectionary *** Lectionary Reading: Mark 1:14-20 CLASSIC POEM: The Bait John Donne Come live with me, and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, With silken lines, and silver hooks. There will the river whispering run Warm’d by thy eyes, more than the sun; And there the ‘enamour’d fish will stay, Begging themselves they may betray. When thou wilt swim in that live bath, Each fish, which every channel hath, Will amorously to thee swim, Gladder to catch thee, than thou him. If thou, to be so seen, be’st loth, By sun or moon, thou dark’nest both, And if myself have leave to see, I need not their light having thee. Let others freeze with angling reeds, And cut their legs with shells and weeds, Or treacherously poor fish beset, With strangling snare, or windowy net. Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest The bedded fish in banks out-wrest; Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies, Bewitch poor fishes’ wand’ring eyes. For thee, thou need’st no such deceit, For thou thyself art thine own bait: That fish, that is not catch’d thereby, Alas, is wiser far than I. *** This poem is in the public domain, and may be read in a live-streamed worship service. CONTEMPORARY POEM: God Goes Fishing Marjorie Maddox SNIPPET: Bamboo stick and he flicks his wrist, swings the line across continents. I can hear it swish, slice clouds. It goes wherever there’s water. … [ READ THE FULL POEM ]