Month: August 2018

Beloved,
Beloving,
may I be a vessel of your love today.
I am flawed and inadequate,
but you have chosen to bear your love
into the world through me.
No matter my shame or fear,
no matter the resistance of others,
let your love shine in me.
To all, the intimate and the stranger,
ally and enemy, welcoming and bristly,
let me convey your love,
for their sake (which is your sake),
not my own.
Not my own skinny passion,
but your deep, life-giving love
flows through me each moment.
May I fill to overflowing
with you
for the sake of the world.
Amen.

―August 31, 2018

Look with your two eyes and see
what is before you.
Observe as you would a beautiful blossom
this person speaking to you.

Now close your eyes and see
with the eyes of your heart
their silent words, their soul,
their light shining.

Now close those eyes and see
with your third eye
everything in them, yourself in them,
God, waiting, becoming.
 

   —August 30, 2018
 

         Whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile…
         It is what comes out of a person that defiles.
                        —Mark 7.18, 20

A beautiful stone, a gem of great value,
is treated with contempt and thrown into the mud.
Has anything changed?

The marvelous colors are still there,
the opalescent beauty,
marbled with light.

Though mud be thrown at you
you will not become mud.
What is holy remains, undefiled.

Take your soul to the river,
wash yourself in the tender love of the Divine
and marvel at your colors.

Bear yourself with the confidence of the gemstone.
Some may see mud,
but you know, you know.
 

   —August 29, 2018

There’s a little kid
in your head’s back seat whining,
“Are we there yet?”

The answer is,
“No, we’re here.”

Running, counting the miles
and quarters of miles,
in a long meeting, watching the clock,
calculating how much remains,
halfway there, almost done—
isn’t where you are, but where you aren’t.
You’re not a fraction of there.
You’re wholly here.

Uncomfortable haul
or lovely walk by the seashore
doesn’t matter.
Let it go. Ignore the little kid.
Be here.

This step. Now this one.
Infinity unfolds.
 

   —August 28, 2018

Curious God,
I will be your little canoe,
just big enough for you
and whatever grace you pack for the journey.
You paddle me where you will.
Surely I will drift,
and slip sideways in the wind,
but that too is your Spirit,
and you will right me as we go.
In still or troubled waters I will trust your touch,
surrender to your leading,
and go where you paddle me.
And when I find myself upside down and out of sorts
I will know you are portaging me to the next passage;
I will trust, and wait, and let you carry me,
until again, by your grace,
it is I who carry you.

―August 27, 2018

There is a map of here
but I am not on the map,
I am here.

There are indications of altitude,
political boundaries,
but what is before me?

Regardless of what someone has drawn,
what do I see?
What do I hear?

There is no map of soul,
no chart of consciousness
that is real.

A map keeps rising before me.
I keep setting it down,
letting go of what I think about where I am

and being where I am.
This is all I need.
I am here.

Here I am.
I am here.
I am.

   —August 24, 2018

When you go to a peaceful place,
a for-off forest or a moment of prayer,
don’t return to easily.
First really be there: take it in,
swallow its essence, breathe its spirit,
so it will be in you when you return.
Don’t jump back into the panic and swirl.
Learn to amble through the chaos.
When you return from the ocean
keep its rhythms still in your ears,
its vastness still filling your eyes.

Rise from your prayers
still dripping with silence,
walk through your day at a prayerful pace,
trailing bits of God.

   —August 23, 2018

I wonder if the angels are disappointed
looking over the earth, seeing
how little progress we’ve made
after thousands of generations,
still barbaric and hateful,

or if they are just more patient
than most of us, knowing
what is coming, only slowly,

or if perhaps they do not think of time
at all but only see us as we are,
walking each on our roads,
each with our burden,
some dancing,
and that great, deep music
floating up out of us.

— August 14, 2018

         Let no evil talk come out of your mouths,
         but only what is useful for building up,
         as there is need,
         so that your words may give grace to those who hear.
                        —Ephesians 4.29

God, you know what a temptation it is
to whine and complain. To criticize and judge.
Free me for something better.

Even in the shadow of evil and injustice
I can speak your grace,
I can utter your endless possibilities.

May my words be light, not dimness,
a sun that shines,
even in deepest darkness.

May my words build up and bless,
create space for newness,
be the living alternative to the evil I decry.

Speak your grace through me.
May I be a person of my word,
and my word be goodness.
 

   —August 13, 2018

Out of my sea depths
         a cry, a wordless noise.
You hear, like a sound through the earth,
         Like my spine hears me.

If you measured, I would disappear.
         All of us would be too small.
But you allow us to fill you.
          So we fill you.

I hold open a space for you,
         emptiness in me that widens
like sky waiting for dawn,
          like the whole sky waiting,
and the dawn, rising,
         filling the whole sky.

We, your people, of your making,
         even, even in our clutter,
we are your open space
         where your light appears.
In your spaciousness
          we become new.

   —August 10, 2018