Mennonite Worship

We are learning so much about the Mennonites as we go through orientation at Mennonite Central Committee here in Akron, PA.  On Sunday we went to our first worship with the Mennonites.  There were several churches to choose from in the small town of Akron, as it is in the heart of Mennonite country.  We chose to go to a lay-lead worship at the "Pilgrim Mennonite Church" here on the campus of MCC.  A study group gave a presentation on the Psalms.  Among other things, several of them read Psalms that they wrote from a 21st Century perspective.  I am copying one below that I found particularly pleasing.  It is posted here with the permission of the authors Phillip and Dee Horst Landis.

Where are you, God, when it is winter?
Is it Your breath that dips south
blowing icyness into the cracks in buildings
where flies hide,
where they press as tightly as invertabrately possible,
letting go when they die and
warming the air minutely as they fall

Surely, God, you hope for other seasons
What word, O Lord, is becoming flesh
when the March grass greens under snow

I have seen You tutor the red beet
giving it knowledge of its own fibrous strength
as it digs its burrow

There is a verb You utter
that helps earthworms find each other
above ground
on damp nights

How often do You, O Lord, guide a dandelion seed
into a dog's nose
tickling as it lingers
Is the sneezing a fair impression of Your laughter?

Do You sometimes forget the scent of the perennial field?
Surely You recover it
through a sheep's broad nose
sniffing.....water, clover, manure,
shepherd, shade, flock and fence

Should we take these things personally, O God?
Does the sunflower's yellow head look around for us to notice
or is each day's twisting stem
simply the work of making one more seed