The sunlight, the water, the air and the soil are sacramental.
They are as eternal inasmuch as humans are able to conceive it.
We are born of these elements, formed, filed smooth and burnished by them.
We die and return to these elements; our mortality is also our eternity.
Yes, we are dust, but we are more than just a lump of sand.
We are water and air and light. We are fire and wind and flood.
The wind and rain and sun
bleached our ancestors bones
ground them into dust.
They are present in this world.
They are part of our physical reality.
The are truly present in the sacramental elements.
The minerals from soil where grain sprouted,
The water that moistened the flour,
The gas bubbles from the yeast
and the heat of the oven
have combined in our daily bread.
The grapes of passion, respect,
kindness and hardship, hang in bunches.
Some are clumped on arbors, well tended and pruned.
Some grow wild, twisting vines in the wild roses,
climbing to the clouds among the oak leaves.
We harvest and tread this vintage.
Our feet are stained with it's furious joy.
It ferments and works and when it is right and ready,
we strain it into barrels, that same oak that lifted the wild fruit.
Time passes in cool, patient cellars of consideration.
Our bodies pass through the universe.
To and fro they form and dissolve and form anew.
The names of these gods change, repeat, and rejuvenate,
but gods we remain, present in all things,
all things present in us.
All the creatures who came before us are present in our bread and wine.
In death, we give our divine selves back to the universe that sustains all.
In life, let us also give ourselves over to the sustenance of those weaker than ourselves.
Sacrifice yourself for justice, for kindness, for men and women and children.
It is the godly thing to do.
Your own hide is the mantle of divinity.
It may hang on a limb like the golden fleece
or be drawn tight over a curragh to glide over the waves,
stretched on a ring of rowan twigs and drummed like a bodhran,
or nailed to a cross of pain.
Twist and spin the fibers of me into a thread.
Wind me into the yarn of humanity.
Knit us into a whole garment
with the creatures of the earth, sea and sky and the green children of the sun.
We clothe the earth in her ever new, ever tattered shawl.