Can you re-ignite my soul? That’s a venture worthy of 2016.
I am in a cold wood. The wind is brutal, but I’ve found a small enclave where the rock and brush surround me close enough to form a shield. I hunker down and hold myself close, burying my head between my knees, leaning back against a large tree. I breathe. Once. Twice. Now a deeper breath. My heart slows a bit. I begin to relax. Continue reading
Too much, too much. Too much work, too little wonder. Too much frustration, not enough desire. Too many chores, not enough creativity. Too much dread, not enough delight.
Where, oh Lord, is the touch of your love, which sparks life from the process of living and calls hope from the mundane? Where, oh Lord, is the breath of your presence? Come to me, I pray. Live in me this day, and help me, help me to be. Continue reading
When tragedy occurs, it seems we must hurry to find someone or something to blame, removing our own guilt and complicity, our responsibility for response, by pointing outside ourselves. What else are we to do with our anger and fear, but place it at a safe distance?
Unfortunately, and all too often, othering is what created the space for tragedy, in the first place – or, at least, what placed the most vulnerable where they will take the brunt of the impact.
Can we learn to respond first with compassion? Can we learn, when we must blame, to blame the othering, and not the other? Can we learn to see – within our very selves – both the victim and the perpetrator, as scary and disgusting as that may be?
Oh, Holy One, help us to learn to love all ‘others’ as ourselves – as, indeed, they are.
[photo by Isabelle per cc 2.0]
Just as the pool cannot reflect the full sky, just as the rocks that sit at the bottom of the pool may distort the image, my words are shaped by who I am, but they are also yours. You seem to actually enjoy the fact that we do this together. You seem to delight in sharing the act of creation. Part of your creative gift is the gift of creativity, itself – you placed the seed within itself.
I delight in it, as well. I love to play with you and with my friends, to feel your compassion rise in my heart and see the words form in my soul. I love to watch you enter the space between us, among us, when we are all in conversation.
The creation that happens in the whispered space where souls connect – is beautiful; is full of grace; is full of you. It fills us all and more; shaping our souls to the contours of your very self.
Ah, this is your kiss upon this day.
This is your symphony within my heart.
This is your confident hope for the world to come.
This is your kingdom.
Come. On earth.
As it is in heaven. As it is heaven.
My fingers are cold; my whole being is cold. The warmth of my own blood has retreated deep within me and I so I sit, cuddled up beneath the oak tree at the top of the meadow. My blood runs slowly through my veins, sluggish. It doesn’t want to venture out to bring life to my limbs. I huddle down, and try to draw warmth from myself, but there is none to draw. I feel tired. Sleep beacons me, calling to me to retreat from my day before it has even begun. Continue reading
Can your love be true?
Do you really love me,
Despite my silly, scary self?
Then let me snuggle down
Within your arms,
Within your deep embrace.
Let your love shape my heart.
Let your wonder call my soul.
Shape me to reflect your gentle kindness
To the world.
Let me be a sliver of hope
That finds its way
Into the life of my community
Borne upon the whisper of grace
That flows from your lips
Through my words
Onto the page of my life.
[photo by Adventures of KM&G-Morris per cc 2.0]
Physics is right.
The way you look at things makes all the difference.
The looking, itself, changes reality.
When I look with generous eyes,
Willing to see wonder,
Searching for hope,
Watching for moments of grace,
My edges of my days are softened.
When others look at me with generous hearts,
Looking for reasons to love and affirm,
Rather than pointing to my warts and worries,
I am made whole.
What a gift to have friends
Who intentionally see the good in me,
Who hug me into my better self.
Perhaps that is the definition of a friend:
Someone who holds the mirror for your better self,
And calls it forth to play.
I am grateful, today, for friends like these.
They fill my life with grace.
They help to make me who I want to be.
After all, it’s not so much what you look at.
It’s what you see. It’s what we see, together.
Thank God.
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Philippians 4:8
[photo by Khalid Al-Haqqan per cc 2.0]
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.
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]
Quiet Hope 