This poem was on the inside cover of the St. Olaf Christmas Festival program this weekend. (I think it's by Pastor Bruce Benson, but I'm not sure).

"When time and knowledge wash like soft but steady waves
against the certainties of early times-
eroding, undercutting, turning rock into sand-
and signs and symbols loose their power
to symbolize with confidence and calm-
to what shall we compare enduring grace, abiding love?

The mountains round about Jerusalem?
Not in these times. Mountains built of rock will move
with shifts and tremors in the crust of earth.
They slide with rains or quakes to villages and valleys far below.
The continents themselves drift slowly round the earth
like mighty icebergs in a calm but swelling sea.

The sea? The never changing, ever changing sea?
"Thus far you shall go, and no further," say the ancient words.
And yet, beset by instability of ocean floors and raging winds,
it trespasses appointed bounds that have been set,
it surges up and sweeps away what mortals think secure.
Even sun and stars, once thought eternal, burn to darkness and are gone.

What endures ... what shall abide ... what can we trust from age to age?

A manger and a mother's love, the angels' song, an infant's cry
are better symbols than the earth and sky
of what endures, of what abides.
For only faith-hope-love abide, these three,
sung as a triune carol for all eternity.

Meanwhile, the green sea's primal ebb and flow,
Orion standing proud above a wintry world below,
the rocky peaks and hills beside
cannot abide, but welcome respect because
they bear their witness to the One who does."