Too often
Grace rambles
Unnoticed
Through my days
Until I pause
To brush the leafy edges
Of a bush
Or notice that
The air is cool in my throat
Or see a cloud unfold
Across the blue
When an ordinary corner of life
Catches on my senses
And peels back
The wonder of today
I rush to gratefulness
Or it rushes to me
It helps me see abundance
Here
And here
And here.
More than enough
To overflow
My soul.
We are experimenters in the holy, as well as subjects of the experiment. – Daniel Snyder
Perhaps it is time for a holy experiment.
My bruised soul
(bruised, in part, from my own abuse)
Has had some time to heal.
My ears have quieted
And the voices that pounded
Or even softly, persistently insisted
Have eased their harping.
The ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’
That have constrained my quest
Are not so loud, just now.
Their absence gives me room.
If I can trust the frameworks
Of a loving truth to guide me –
A truth I cannot claim,
But can claim me, instead …
Perhaps I can risk
A holy experiment.
Perhaps I can let go
And risk the fall to hope.
Hope is a risk, you know.
It does not let you cling to certainty.
It does not let you cling, at all.
It requires an open hand and heart.
I feel as if I have been scaling a cliff
But my fingers have lost their hold.
I can no longer even see the ground
And so, I tumble, down and down.
Fearful of a fall to the death of all I know;
Of all my self-constructed assurance;
I fall into the dark and groundless silence.
Yet somehow, I feel my soul reorienting
Catlike, turning with my feet to the ground
Not knowing, even, how I know to turn.
Is a soul made like that?
I would not have let go
Except I could no longer hold on.
There are, sometimes, those
Unavoidable, necessary falls
That take you, though resisting,
Into a different frame.
The shell must crack
Before the new life can emerge.
It’s just so hard to be grateful
For that crack.
Could it be that every death
Leads to a bigger life
If we will but allow
The breaking of the shell?
Could it be that the deepest truth
Is that death is not the inevitable end?
Could it be that it is life, instead,
It what is inevitable?
Is there, perhaps, an inevitable beginning
As love invites us home?
Photo by Carlos Ebert retrieved from Flickr per cc 2.0 Quotation from Snyder, Daniel O.. Praying in the Dark: Spirituality, Nonviolence, and the Emerging World (p. 66). Kindle Edition.
What does it take
To receive a gift
Graciously,
Fully?
It takes attention
And an open heart.
It means suspension of judgement,
Looking away from my gain
To your generosity.
The object in your hands
Is not the true gift.
It is the offer of your attention
Calling to mine.
It is your heart, whispering …
‘I want to connect.
I want to honor
Your presence in my world.’
It is the open palm,
The heart extended,
That whispered longing,
That holds the beauty.
And to give a gift?
You must release it, tenderly.
It is an offer
Not a consummation.
When a gift is truly given
And received fully in return,
Two hearts are exchanged.
photo by Eva retrieved from Flickr per cc BY-NC-SA 2.0
You don’t ever know where a sentence will take you, depending on its roll and fold. -Mary Oliver
I’m truly surprised
That I can surprise myself.
My fingers on the keyboard,
My eyes closed,
In that safe space
I can let myself go.
I usually start with some word or phrase or image.
I take a moment to embrace that kernel
And then I drop it to the earth
And let the soil blow over.
The soft rains come.
The sun’s warm cuddle
Holds it close.
And I wait.
It takes time.
It takes release.
(Ok, it takes time to release it.)
But, after a bit,
It starts to grow.
It pushes tiny leaves
Above the earth’s crumble.
They lift and expand
Searching for the light
That will touch
The life within themselves.
That tiny seedling
Grows within the soil
Of who I am.
It seeks a light
To lift my life
And connect it all:
The earth, the sun,
The tiny leaves of hope.
And so, it is surprising
To find my thoughts
Have gone somewhere unexpected
And discovered
Also, a surprise,
That they are back
Where they started
But somehow richer
Fuller, more complete.
I follow my words
Down the path of my imagination
And find myself
At the end of the loop
Smiling in surprise
At a tiny seedling
Growing
Here
Within.
Quotation from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (p. 257). Kindle Edition.
Photo by Samuel hosted by Flickr and used per CC BY-NC 2.0.
It is not about winning
Nor forcing the world into your frame
Nor fixing another’s broken ideology
Nor being right
Or even figuring out what’s wrong.
A tight fist can never hold
The true wonder of the world.
Only when you release
Your hold,
Your fierce determination,
Your very self
Can you let the dream begin.
Only when you release your breath
Into the greater sigh
Can you hope to notice
That you are a tiny part
Of something vastly more.
It is within the interplay of your desires
To be both apart and a part
Where you begin to dance
Where the hand that is yours
Can touch the hand of quite another
And wholeness begins
To knit your soul to life.
photo is my own
Fear keeps me from you, my holy friend Not fear of you but fear of you seeing me, knowing me Fear of your disappointment and your deep sigh Fear of the recognition of myself within your eyes Ashamed and sad. How can I flee the love that would bring me to life? Why turn my heart from dear embrace? Like a small child, covering my eyes so you can’t see me I plug my ears and hum, forgetting that every molecule is sourced by you. Oh, hound of heaven, chase me down Until I turn at last to find you dancing in delight Until you lick my face in joy Willing, again, to humble yourself in incarnation Whatever form it takes to free my love.
Have you ever noticed That there are some people Who seem to hold a brightness In their spirit? Their eyes are more alive. The day lifts a bit When they come into it. They bring a quiet joy. There is a confidence within them, But it is not focused on themselves. They seem to be held by an assurance That the world is deeply right. What if, perhaps, they caught the holy virus? And what if it is spread by smiles? Even the tiny upturn of a lip, The twinkle in an eye, can bring exposure. And what if I, too, could be a carrier, A vector of life? Ah! That would make me smile! (And did I just see the twinkle in your eye?)
When I see kindness, When I see beauty, And my soul sighs … Then, I know that I am saying, ‘Yes, please,’ To the whisper of reality That is more deeply true Than all the pain along the path. Whatever else is true, You have won my heart, again. [photo by Stanley Zimney per cc 2.0 on flickr]
Romans 7: 4-6; Genesis 3: 7&21; Romans 8: 38-39
Don’t you know, my beloved,
That you can no longer live under that law?
The way the world used to work,
Works no longer – even for you.
You have begun to see the cracks in that system.
And what you fear has begun to happen.
It cannot hold together for much longer.
The privilege that protected you –
That put you first in line,
Or led those in authority
To look the other way
When you stole what was not yours –
That privilege hangs in tatters round your frame.
And you are naked beneath it.
You cannot re-arrange it enough
To cover your shame.
Nor should you.
Give it up.
Give it to me.
Now that you realize that you are naked,
You can also see that the fig leaves
Are not working.
They will never work.
Hide from me no longer.
The ‘fall’ you fear is not a fall from me,
But from the false version of yourself
That dared to claim completeness
Apart from me,
Apart from everyone, from everything, else.
It is that very delusion of separateness,
That keeps you lonely.
That idea that you must somehow be enough
By yourself, in yourself,
That idea is what keeps you keeps you stuck
In the empty, hollow place within your soul.
But
You are not alone.
And there is nothing you can do to change that.
It is not your fig leaves that will keep you safe.
See, I have clothed you in my love.
It fits you like your very skin.
And nothing can separate you from that love –
Not death,
Not life,
Not elections,
Not the hate another spews at you,
Nor the despising you paint upon yourself,
Not your worry, nor your abject fear,
Not a pandemic, nor economic crash,
Neither angels nor demons,
Neither the present nor the future,
Not any power … high or low,
Nor anything else in all creation,
Can separate you from the love of God.
Nothing can separate you.
You are no longer separate.
That delusion has been shattered.
And, in its place, the very vision
Of the beloved community.
You, me, and all.
All together.
All wrapped in the love of God.
May it be so.
It is so.
Amen.
How long, oh Lord?
How long will it take
For us to show your mercy,
For us to live into your grace?
Like a Mother,
Bending over her young child,
You wait for our first stumbling steps
Toward justice.
You wait for us to wake
With the compassion
You have placed within our hearts.
You wait with eager longing.
It seems you cannot compel our hearts
Without negating who we are.
We must learn to hear your call
And move ourselves toward you.
And yet, our eyes are turned away
From your dear face.
We let ourselves be filled with fear
And the anger that it breeds.
Our leaders curse and blame and fume.
We follow their example,
Letting their anger spark our own.
We yield to fear over faith.
Its hard to take that step
When we listen to the torrent of words
That flow from angry mouths
Feeding that anger and fear.
But deep within my heart,
When I am still, when I am quiet,
I think I hear you whisper,
‘One step, my child, one step.’
‘You learn to walk
By looking at my face
Not at your feet,
Nor at your fear.’
‘You learn by reaching for my hands.
You learn to walk by falling.
And by getting up.
And taking one more step.’
Help me to learn to walk toward justice.
Amen.
[I need to acknowledge that my white privilege stains my words and shields me from much of the risk of striving for justice. Yet the guilt and shame and fear that are my first reactions to the dawning realization of my complicity are not the motivations that will best help to change my heart or my actions. Such emotions keep the focus on me. Instead, I need to keep my eyes and my heart focused on Christ, who shows himself in the oppressed and marginalized people around me.]
Quiet Hope 