May this day smile upon you.
May your heart catch its breath.
May your eyes rest upon beauty.
May your soul know peace.
May the touch of your fingers
Warm the life of another.
May your words fall like rain
On thirsty ground.
May the love that gives you life
Expand ever outward
Moving from heart to heart to heart
Like ripples across a pond.
May you pause to receive
The gifts that come your way
Adding your touch of grace
To their endless journey.
Once again I come to you and place my day within your hands.
Once again you smile and it evokes a smile in me.
Once again I feel your love, full and free.
Once again I lean back in that love, in your arms, and raise my face to your kiss.
Once again you have blessed me deeply with your presence.
Once again I thank you.
How frail and thin those words seem, “thank you.”
Life itself, love itself, eternity itself, are within your embrace.
And yet, my tiny thanks still fills my tiny soul … and so it fits.
Your embrace gathers me in and more
A drop within an ocean
A whisper in the wind.
Thank you.
I sit, trying to still the waters of my soul,
Trying to find myself within their flow,
Even as the howling storms around me
Threaten to split the very stones beneath my feet.
But the water is not threatened by cracking rock.
It merely flows into that space as well.
And with sweet relief I see that the level of my pool is not diminished.
The source of that water is not within me.
The spring that feeds my soul is unlimited.
And even when a deep crevasse opens up before me, the water fills it all.
I do not have to fall into the abyss.
The water holds me up.
Sometimes the contours of the change make it whitewater – full of crash and spray
But if I will trust the ride, and leave the end within your hands,
It can be an adventure.
A rainbow rises in the mist that floats across the tumult.
Pull me into this reality, oh Holy One, I pray.
And help me hold firm to your buoyant grace.
Rock, scissors, paper … water covers all. You win.
Sounds like a dance, doesn’t it? Well, it is the dance. Suddenly the second commandment – love your neighbor as yourself- takes on another layer of meaning. If the interrelation of The Three is a dance, and we are invited in, we must learn to dance together. Continue reading
I stand at the top of the steps – a hundred steps, perhaps – and look out upon the morning. The sun has not yet come up, but the sky has begun to turn a lighter gray and the silhouettes of buildings and trees have sharpened, just a bit. It is quiet here, and still. No one else is stirring.
I turn and look at the large oak doors, heavy and metal-bound, that guard the entrance to the building that stands, imposing, at the top of oh, so many stairs. No one comes here, no one enters, by accident. Continue reading
Can I even do this?
Can I jump from work to meditation in a heartbeat?
What besides a heartbeat can hold room for meditation?
Yet, it is a challenge to get inside a heartbeat – to hold the moment open.
That infinite, small space; that timeless time; that inward journey toward the universe
It does not bend to my command, and yet it is, somehow, within my reach.
The rain today is a slow drizzle
The kind that sinks gently into your soul
Filling the deep cracks that have yearned for its coming
Drawing the broken pieces whole
As I go about my day
Doing the dailyness; tidying and futzing with the debris of my week
The rain is there, in the background
Filling my holes.
What persistent grace you give
Working its way when I notice, and when I do not
Seeping down between each grain of sand
To firm it up, to allow it to hold its shape
You are the rain of my soul
The filler of my holes
The holder of my tiny fragments of self
The moisture that feeds the dry with hope
The tiny wildflowers that sprout across the pasture in delight of drizzle
Give testament to that persistent grace
And to the seeds of gifts within my frame
That you call forth within the quiet patter of an afternoon.
[photo by jenny downing per cc 2.0]
There was once a tiny flower
Peaking up through a crack in the sidewalk
Seeking both sun and the modicum of soil that such a space provides.
My roots are cramped in this small space.
I am, like all rooted beings, unable to move into the sun.
I must wait its coming, turning toward its grace at the moment of its arrival.
I am planted here by the breath of the wind
That carried my seed to this place and time.
My DNA has opened deep blue petals to the day.
There is little ‘me’ of my own making
But there is this:
The grateful tilt of my heart,
The addition of my blue to the gray of the sidewalk,
And, yes, a bit of nectar for that small bee.
I am glad to rest in grace within this small space and span of life.
I am glad to feel the sun upon my face.
I am glad for the fragrance of your joy, unfurled upon my petals.
I am glad for the whisper of the breeze
And for this small bit of soil that feeds my soul
And holds me tight, in you.
[photo by anastasiaphotography per cc 2.0]
I want to be Rumi or Julian of Norwich.
You want me to be me.
I don’t want to settle.
You smile, thanking me for agreeing with you. Continue reading
Quiet Hope 