Green leaves spend their whole lives
Nurturing the tree they call home
And sending vital oxygen into the world.
In the fall, when they retire,
They turn their souls to beauty –
Revealing gifts of color that had been hidden
Under the hard-working chlorophyl.
There is beauty in the bud.
There is beauty in the green.
There is beauty in the orange and yellow that follows.
I am rejoicing in each new turn of beauty,
In the leaves, in my friends, in myself.
[photo is my own]
I do so need you, Holy One.
I need to find the touchstone of my soul.
I need to know that REAL is real.
That life is more than living,
Breathing more than breath.
It is so easy to be wrapped in this fog of forgetting,
This mindless urgency of ‘should.’
Help me remember, as I enter this day,
That you are here, beside me,
Yes, even deep within.
Help me see life peaking out around that corner.
Help me hear the giggle in your call.
It is not a game of hide and seek you play,
But a game of seek and find.
Where pure delight is eager for discovery.
Help me feel your deep anticipation.
You can hold on to joy amid the noise of life.
For you, the end is sure, and soon.
Although creation rushes forth with such abundance
It somehow never leaves the heart of your embrace.
You ask me to hold faith,
Not so that I can prove myself,
But so that I can hold that joyful confidence with you.
Knowing that the eternal embrace is just a snuggling closer
Within the arms that already surround me.
[photo by Francesc González per cc 2.0]
There is a beauty so fierce
That it cannot be hidden.
Neither wrinkles nor scars
Can mask its magnificence.
It flashes out from eyes alive with joy
And exudes peace even as it struggles.
For there are those who are anointed
With the touch of the divine.
That touch, in turn,
Flows from their fingers
And whispers from their lips
Dusting the world around them with grace.
This is a beauty that expands with time.
Familiarity breeds … amazement,
For its kindness is ever deeper, ever true.
Its very constancy adds to its glow.
The glory of a sunrise,
Even on the highest summit
Cannot match the beauty
Of a fiercely loving friend.
The true book of life
Is not just a list of names
It is a wealth of stories –
Yours and mine.
And each day, we have the chance
To write another episode,
Enriching heaven’s dance,
Which has already begun.
I want to learn to dance with you
To lean my ear upon your chest
And feel the beat of life
To feel your rhythms in the very heart of me.
Even my self-conscious, awkward moves
Are not enough to stop the music.
It is all a part of the undeniable narrative of love
Danced out, within your arms.
Sometimes, when words won’t do,
My imagination opens the way for prayer.
And so I pray for my friend,
That You will comfort her with your Spirit,
That You will cloak her in your grace
And bring healing.
Here is the prayer of my imagination:
I see my friend lying in her bed, with labored breathing and discomfort in her soul. And then I see them: around the bed, a circle of angels is holding hands with one another. They stand so close that their wings touch each other and form a wall, a curtain around the bed.
One angel begins to sing, softly. Her tones are just barely audible. The tune, a soothing melody of hope and love, begins to flow from one angel to the other across the circle and around it until it is almost as if they have woven a canopy of song above her bed. They continue their singing and the canopy grows more substantial, revealing intricate patterns of color and light, of texture and depth.
At a signal from one of the angels, they all soften and lower their voices and the canopy itself is lowered until it covers my friend like a blanket. The touch of it seems to ease her breathing and soften some of the lines upon her face. She sighs in momentary respite from her pain.
They continue their melody and the blanket enfolds her more closely and then begins to melt into her very frame. Its melody makes its way into her flesh, into her weary body and brings hope and peace. They sing until all of the blanket has dissolved in this way; all of its healing strength is now within her.
Then a single angel smiles at the others in thanks and they leave. All but that one angel. She takes her position at the head of the bed, watching my friend, holding her steady. She will remain.
Amen
[photo by Bernard Healy per cc 2.0]
It is there
Deep, deep within the forest
Deep, deep inside my soul,
Deep within the smiles and words of friendship
Deep in certain books or poems
It is there.
Some call it life force, or beauty.
Some call it prahna or pneuma or ruach.
Whatever it is, I find it undeniable.
It is, for me, the deepest reality, and best hope.
I think I’ll call it love.
[photo is my own]
Every true friendship
Holds the whisper of divinity.
What some see in the sunrise,
I glimpse within your smile.
The hug you bring in greeting
Is always a double embrace.
These truths hold my heart
And feed my life.
Thank you.
[photo by Corey Balazowich per cc 2.0]
There is an image,
An exchange I witnessed,
That has been percolating
In my memory for years.
You’ve probably seen it, too:
A young mother
With her infant bouncing on her lap.
They are enthralled with one another.
What flows between them,
Almost visible as their eyes connect,
Palpable in the air between them,
Is the exchange of life-giving love.
The infant is held by something
So much stronger than her hands.
The mother is upheld
With something just as strong.
Their gifts to one another
Are so tangible
So vital
So real.
Yet each is filled,
Not emptied.
Full of a love that will not be contained.
A rush of life between them.
This is love incarnate.
Love enfleshed; love fulfilled.
This is how life is passed on.
Birth is just the beginning.
Perhaps this shows me why
The Christ came to us.
To look us in the eye
And give us life.
God breathed upon the clay.
Christ looked on us with love.
The Spirit, now within us,
Empowers life’s eternal flow.
It is like breath:
Receiving in; giving out.
Each delightful exchange
Brings life anew.
[image cropped from photo by Robert Moores per cc 2.0]
Deep calls to deep, they say.
I believe it.
It skips my head and grabs my heart.
The universe moves
And something shifts within me
I feel the quantum change
Small and vast at the same time.
There is a truth spinning at the center
Humming in my soul
Vibrating across the strings of my heart
You can’t pin it down.
Observation, itself, makes it shift.
Only one aspect at a time can come into view.
It is simply too big, too vast,
Too deep.
Logic looses its grip.
It cannot hold.
But where logic pushes away,
Love draws close.
The heart of it all calls to my heart.
I know that it is true,
Not because I’ve figured it out,
Not because I’ve grasped it,
But because it holds me
And I feel its embrace.
Deeply.
What if, perhaps,
Quiet Hope 