After the Quarrel

*** Revised Common Lectionary *** Lectionary Reading: I Corinthians 3:1-9 CLASSIC POEM: After the Quarrel Paul Laurence Dunbar So we, who’ve supped the self-same cup, To-night must lay our friendship by; Your wrath has burned your judgment up, Hot breath has blown the ashes high. You say that you are wronged— ah, well, I count that friendship poor, at best A bauble, a mere bagatelle, That cannot stand so slight a test. I fain would still have been your friend, And talked and laughed and loved with you; But since it must, why, let it end; The false but dies, ‘t is not the true. So we are favored, you and I, Who only want the living truth. It was not good to nurse the lie; ‘Tis well it died in harmless youth. I go from you to-night to sleep. Why, what’s the odds? why should I grieve? I have no fund of tears to weep For happenings that undeceive. The days shall come, the days shall go Just as they came and went before. The sun shall shine, the streams shall flow Though you and I are friends no more. And in the volume of my years, Where all my thoughts and acts shall be, The page whereon your name appears Shall be forever sealed to me. Not that I hate you over-much, ‘Tis less of hate than love defied; Howe’er, our hands no more shall touch, We’ll go our ways, the world is wide. *** This poem is in the public domain, and may be read in a live-streamed worship service. CONTEMPORARY POEM: Amish Economy Wendell Berry Found in: This Day SNIPPET: We live by mercy if we live. To that we have no fit reply But working well and giving thanks, Loving God, loving one another, To keep Creation’s neighborhood. … [ READ THE FULL POEM ]