“Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.'” – Isaiah 2:3

A mountaintop is the House of God,
a place of mystery.

A mountaintop lacks human homes,
for it is foreign ground.

A mountaintop is a solid thing, we think,
until it flows.

A mountaintop can teach us anything
we wish to learn.

A mountaintop can teach us truth unless
we’d rather hold our lies.

The liquid stone flows down the mountainside
passing people flowing up.

The mountain’s fluid flanks sweep our
pretense away.

And then the lava hardens into rock
like human hearts

Who fail to learn the truth that swords and spears
mean nothing

And the truth that plows and pruning hooks
mean everything.

A mountaintop can teach us truth unless
we’d rather hold our lies.

A poem/prayer based on Isaiah 2:1-5, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year A, First Sunday of Advent.

Photo of the Kilauea summit by Eric Anderson.