The Word of God
Lyrics and melody © 1994 by Catherine Faber
From desert cliff and mountaintop we
trace the wide design,
Strike-slip fault and overthrust and syn and anticline. .
.
We gaze upon creation where erosion makes it known,
And count the countless aeons in the banding of the
stone.
Odd, long-vanished creatures and their tracks & shells
are found;
Where truth has left its sketches on the slate below the
ground.
The patient stone can speak, if we but listen when it
talks.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the rocks.
There are those who name the stars, who
watch the sky by night,
Seeking out the darkest place, to better see the light.
Long ago, when torture broke the remnant of his will,
Galileo recanted, but the Earth is moving still.
High above the mountaintops, where only distance bars,
The truth has left its footprints in the dust between the
stars.
We may watch and study or may shudder and deny,
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the sky.
By stem and root and branch we trace, by
feather, fang and fur,
How the living things that are descend from things that
were.
The moss, the kelp, the zebrafish, the very mice and
flies,
These tiny, humble, wordless things---how shall they tell us
lies?
We are kin to beasts; no other answer can we bring.
The truth has left its fingerprints on every living
thing.
Remember, should you have to choose between them in the
strife,
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote life.
And we who listen to the stars, or walk
the dusty grade,
Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,
Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open
hand.
The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand.
Deep in flower and in flesh, in star and soil and seed,
The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.
So turn and look where best you think the story is
unfurled.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
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