When our lives know sudden shadow, new awareness, shot with pain, when the body's ills defeat us, anger beats in hard refrain, God, our God, we cry for meaning, cry for all we would regain. Patch by patch, the quilt is fashioned, thread by thread, the colors sewn, stitched in tears, and richly patterned, loves our lives have touched and known, families of hapless sorrow, drawn together, yet alone. Friend, befriending the afflicted, wake us to the world we share: shine through us, divine compassion, hope within our heart's despair, building from the stones rejected new communities of care. Only you, most holy Lover, hold us with insistent claim, from our living to our dying give a purpose to our frame, welcome us, however broken, wait for us, and call our name.