Doxology for Bones and Beasts

To him who heard cries from the bones
we hid in sacred cliffs that slay our horizon,
The one who watched us raise
feral chants and hail fanged sanctuaries,
He wept as a bloody deluge boiled behind our eyes;

To the one who refused to recoil,
who bound himself to violent flesh to live with us,
and claimed he could weave slaughtered veins into new life,
The one we hunted in the mountains,
who we found searching our caves,
gathering the beloved bones of bruised reeds and smoldering wicks,
We devoured him with a savage hermeneutic and the darkness snarled;

To him who snuffed out death in the belly of our abyss,
and returned to us carrying the dawn in scarred hands,
The one who invited us to the table as children rather than beasts,
who begged us to break his body and blood, newly whole,
We ate our fill of bread and wine;

To him who solders shards into stained glass stories,
who stitches scars from open wounds
and soothes those ravished by fear,
The one who crowns our outcasts,
and gives poetry to those buried by despair,
He teaches us all a holy anthem; 

To him who moves us to love those we ache
to drag as prey to high branches,
who gives us compassionate eyes
for those still trapped in our degenerate dark,
He knits salvation into our hearts
and breathes mercy into perverted soil,
that all bones and beasts might feast on hope;

To the one who sits with us at the table,
who gently hushes the chorus of the redeemed to whisper
“Behold, I make all things new,”—
To him who is Christ our Savior and our God belongs
all honor, glory, power, and praise before all ages, now and forevermore.

Amen.