The Tapestry

“Less is much more”, or so they say
As I sit down to cut a play
From novel text writ years ago
And thus convert to Lenten show.

Task comes as now I also cut
And shape my chunks of future up
From building blocks of actions done
From battles past both lost and won.

The story talks of exiles freed
To go back to community
Their lives had been quite good compared
To those at home, the exile spared.

As they return they face the choice
As author put it in his voice,
“You’ve learned a lot, matured and grew
With this new chance, what will you do?”

The author holds an option out
Which other exiles viewed with doubt
That insights gained in troubled past
Could bless both home and nations vast.

And in the end, though words forsook
They kept his thoughts writ in their book
And circling wagons round their home
Rebuilt their people in their zone.

Five hundred years of troublous life
Saw rubble gone and Temple nice
You came within their kin, O Lord,
Distilled to essence all their word.

Old insights now not just for them
But for the other groups of men
And women living far and wide
Whose lives could use a brighter side.

Now we of cultures round the globe
Need not like them their culture hold
To gain the insights of God’s word
Their group picked up as seen and heard.

But now as salt to flavor life
And light to brighten up our strife
With leaven mixed into our ways
We rise, like them, to better days.

We see the larger picture now
Though at the time they’d not seen how
The insight that this leader held
Would be fulfilled if hope they held.

My task – in cutting novel back
To make a Lenten play to track
One part of larger yarn to see
A woven part of tapestry.

Once thread is seen and closely viewed
Its part with others now imbued
Perhaps each viewer’s life will take
A deeper meaning in its wake.

I want to lay out all the parts
But that’s not needed in the arts
As “less is more” in all of life
As we find hope within our strife –

My scrape with death slowed my life down –
I listened in the noise for sound
Life’s clutter quickly stripped away –
What freedom-choice to make today?

I want my choice to be just right
When viewed ahead with second-sight
Though that’s a trap of thought I’m sure
I can’t to better thought demure.

I want a place in history
Like these folks’ piece of yarn you see
A bright spot standing out from rest
With pride of place – not second best.

Yet not the yarn or tapestry
The place in life I want to be
But weaver – God – your place to hold
So I can flaunt my hero-gold.

How silly-strong that drive within
As all our lives are dyed with sin.
Then as I stand afar I see
Your partly finished tapestry –

I see you weave our threads now dyed
From struggles, heartaches, joys, and sighs,
With others’ fragments or our time
To craft a picture quite sublime.

It matters not what part we’ve been
You weave us in, to make a scene,
A picture larger than our swirl –
Each man and woman, boy and girl.

What color thread in end I’ll be
Is really more what’s up to me
A mix of dyes without, within,
Makes shifting tones of yarn so thin.

Each strand a twist of fiber tight
Of things that filled each day and night
All strands are pretty much the same
But tone’s from how we played the game.

As I turn back now to my life
All intertwined with task and wife
I sense more clear the job for me –
What tone next bit of thread I’ll be.

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