Author: Steve

Oh, traveler,
the treasure is not far away.
Oh, merchant,
the pearl is in your pocket.
How much of your life is attic junk?
Escape the trinkets that have been hoarding you.
What you can hold isn’t worth grasping.
What you can possess won’t last beyond the sale.
Don’t seek what you don’t already have.
Don’t covet what can be taken from you.
What you can’t hold in a breath
isn’t worth it.
Breathe in.
Sell all your treasures for that.
Once you’ve seen it shine,
it will surprise you what you’ll let go of for it.
Throw your arms around this world.
Buy the field of this whole grand life,
its weeds and rocks, its pains and mysteries,
all of yourself.
Look! Right now,
you are rich beyond belief.

[Matthew 13.44-46]

                                                    —July 26, 2017
 

         The realm of heaven is like yeast
         that a woman took and mixed in
         with three bushels of flour
         until all of it was leavened.
                  —Matthew 13.33

In this moment
light is hidden.
In the person before me
even as words rise from bed
and look for their clothes
already an ancient blessing abides,
a story of grace seeks its form.
In every suffering,
infected with light,
a dawn unfolds,
a great flowing forth.
Even the greatest injustice
is leavened with grace.
The things of this world are brittle,
but light is always becoming.
Its beginning was before the mind
and there is no end to it.

                           —July 25, 2017
 

A bird disappears into a forest
and a song emerges, unseen.
Worms work their alchemy
in darkness beyond me.
Laborers tend shops and flowers

in the city of me.
I don’t know their names.
The city thrives.
Music rises from its streets.

I open the doors of myself
to the blackness within
and You enter to pray.

[Romans 8.26]

                           —July 24, 2017

         Let the weeds and wheat grow together
         until the harvest.
                  —Matthew 13.30

Your difficulties belong.
What angers and seduces you,
what pains you or confounds you,
are pages of the book.
They are your teachers.
They are the rough desert
where your savior abides.

The story of grace
has many chapters,
and much suspense.
Read the whole book,
every page,
and keep in your heart
the gift of hope:
knowing there is wheat
among the weeds
the Faithful One
knows how to harvest,
knowing the story
isn’t over yet.

                           —July 21, 2017
 

         We are children of God.
         We have received a spirit of adoption.
         All of creation has been groaning in labor pains
         and we ourselves groan inwardly while we wait for adoption,
         the redemption of our bodies.
                  —Romans 8.15, 22-23

How wonderful of Paul to mash up these metaphors,
that we groan inwardly in giving birth,
and we are also ourselves natural born children of God,
and also that we await adoption as children,
and we have already received adoption:
natural issue of God, chosen by God,
like God giving birth, and newborn:
starting new, being changed,
and belonging in ways that can’t be changed.
All of that.
Children of God.

This is what everyone’s groans are.
This is what everyone you meet
is dying to know.
Treat them so.

                                                         ―July 20, 2017

The sun processes up the aisle
carrying the Gospel.
   
Birds speak of the other world
in their own Latin.

A child looks up at me
with those two big brown universes.

A voice stands up in me
that knows how to do this.

What is this, even in my sleep,
but you, touching your lips to mine?

                           —July 19, 2017
 

Beloved,
you are the newborn
who amazes me,
that you issue from me.

You are the baby I hold in my arms,
transfixed.

You are the little one
whose wonder delights me.

You are the child who walks
out of the house pulling my heart,
trailing a stream of my desire.

You board the school bus and all day
I am wondering about you.

I sit on the bed with you
and listen to your joys and woes
without answers.

You are the one I stand beside
as you pledge your faithful love to the world,
and even on sorrowful days
I am full of gratitude and hope.

I marvel as you accomplish
your great things.
On and on your story goes,
through me, and without me.

You have already outpaced me.
Outlive me, Beloved,
go on, go on.

                  —July 18, 2017
 

Light and shadow
carve the stone of the cliff face
morning and evening.
The light is stronger than the stone.

Each day sun and wind
work their art on the sea,
a different masterpiece every day.

Creating God, I am your canvas.
Your light, your wind,
your grace raining down
paint your Word on me,
your self-portrait,
your living work.

                           —July 17, 2017

         A sower went out to sow. 
         Some seeds fell on the path…
         other seeds fell on rocky ground…
         other seeds fell among thorns…
                  —from Matthew 13.1-9

The candle doesn’t trouble itself
with the journey of light.
The bird doesn’t care who hears.

Beloved, you waste many seeds.
You offer kindness unnoticed.
You try seventy times to forgive, and fail,
and those you forgive don’t repent.
You love the undeserving and unappreciative.
You try and try to get close to me,
yet feel no closer.
Your prayers fall on rocky ground.

My child, how much of my grace,
do you suppose, falls among thorns?

Beloved, it is the mystery of your faith
that you can not know
the life of the seeds you sow,
how far away, how much later,
in whose unseen heart
your love bears fruit,
thirty, sixty, a hundred fold.

Do not measure; do not judge.
Sow light. Sow light.

                           —July 14, 2017

God of my breath,
may the leaves of your trees
in their billions
open in me.

The waves of the sea
eternally bowing in prayer
move in me.

The cry of the hawk
echoing in the canyon
resound in me.

The blessing rain
coming down like tears, like hair,
like a mother’s milk,
come down in me.

Your love, billowing like clouds,
flowing like a stream,
breathing like prairie air,
open in me this day,
move in me this day,
resound in me this day,
bless in me this day.

Amen.      

                           —July 13, 2017