Author: Steve

            Will you still need me, will you still feed me
            when I’m sixty-four?
                        —The Beatles   

God, thank you for another year of this life:
for the journey, the continual unfolding;
for your unfailing companionship in every step;
for the Spirit that leads me on,
and the flesh that bears me as it can;
for wisdom that grows;
for love that endures;
for the long adventure of letting go;
for who you have enabled me to be,
and for who I am becoming.
I pray for the coming year,
that I will be more deeply present,
more gratefully trusting,
more fully willing to be led.
Grant me another year of wonder.
As a birthday present for you,
born anew in me each day,
I give you myself,
to enjoy and use according to your delight.
  

                           —June 14, 2017

            The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;
            therefore ask the overseer of the harvest
            to send out laborers into the harvest.
                           —Matthew 9.37-38

Maybe the harvest is not bringing people to Christ
but gathering the fruits of the Spirit
God has sown in you
for the sake of the world.

Maybe it’s not an act of taking,
but receiving.

The harvest is plentiful
but few are the people who have gathered,
who have received the gifts, the grace,
the love growing in your heart,
and feasted on those fruits
to be strengthened to go out
and heal the wounded,
and be good news for the broken of the world.

The field stretches to the horizon.
There are more trees in this orchard
than stars in heaven.

What grace have you not yet harvested?
Go into that good harvest.
Here is a basket for your labors. Go.

                           —June 13, 2017

            
Beloved,
this moment I offer myself to you,
fully present for your sake,

and pledge to offer myself—
every encounter, every challenge,
every dull moment
an opportunity—

trusting
that every moment this day
you offer yourself to me.

Eyes, hands and hearts open,
we meet each other,
lovers coming together,
and we are glad.

                           —June 12, 2017

For the whole story of my life I thank you, God:
for the Creation you’ve planted me in,
for the gifts and blessings and bright moments,
for those who have loved and led me, thank you.
For the whole winding path: each step
is part of the story, and you have been with me.
Thank you for the struggles and the times I was lost,
for those were times when I learned to be a pilgrim.
Thank you for the hurts and dark places,
for they’re part of how I’ve come to know your love,
and know my need for you.
Thank you for my gifts and all I have to offer,
even those I haven’t named or discovered yet.
Thank you for my wounds and weaknesses,
for in them I am more like Christ;
they evoke your grace and call out the gifts of others.
Thank you for my rough places, by which I discover
how my jagged piece fits in your jigsaw grace.
And for all that is to come,
that I will experience and that will unfold in me,
I give you thanks and ask your blessing.
Not that you must be implored but I must open myself,
I ask your help. For the challenges to come
(some are welcome and at least one I dread)
be my courage, my wisdom and my strength,
my patience, my healing and my compassion.
My whole story is the story of your love.
I thank you for your blessing;
I ask for your help;
I trust your grace;
I rejoice in your goodness.

                           —June 9, 2017

In awe of my Being
I sit.
I breathe.
I am You.
Eternal and infinite in this time,
this flesh, this place,
I am.

In awe of my Belonging
I receive.
I receive from You.
I receive Your forgiveness, healing and delight.
I receive myself.
I am myself in all Creation,
cell in your Body,
member of Your family,
sibling in holiness.
You come to me.
You speak to me.

In awe of my Becoming
I surrender.
I let your light unfold in me,
in the mystery of my becoming,
in my many gifts.
In compassion for all people, all living beings,
I give myself to the world.
My giving is my becoming.

In you I become.
In you I belong.
In you I AM.

                       ─ June 8, 2017

The Beloved can think of nothing more beautiful
         than her children running toward her
so she stands a bit away
         so we will come to her.
But she is not waiting in faraway places:
          no, it is in people whom we least suspect.
In the stranger, even the person we dislike ―
         Ah! There she is.

She gives us this gift
         for our own delight.
The Beloved has hidden us
         in one another,
waiting for us to see
         and come together, astonished.

                       ─ June 7, 2017

When terror strikes,
random, cruel hearted
in our own places,
it shakes us.
We feel unsafe. We crave security.
The Dreaded could happen any day.
And so we rejoin our family.
We rejoin the vulnerable,
who never had the illusion of security,
who labor in danger,
who live at risk every day,
who are targeted,
and have no protectors.
They hold their funerals
and they live their lives.
They are our lives.
We are one body, one spirit.
We can’t walk away.
No matter how safe we can be
we can’t walk away.
We have to be there for each other
in the unprotected places.
That’s why we’re here,
not to walk away safe
but to be here for each other.

                           —June 5, 2017

I walk in woods,
look up into leaf-spangled sky,
pass among new ferns opening their psalm books,
pray with birds’ chants and incantations,
choose my way among rocks and mud.
Early light clings to the side of a tree
like a bird.
Bugs bug me.
Everything belongs.

This is the world I belong to,
the mud I am from.

Before I resist those who would kill it for money,
haul its body off in well paid rail cars,
before I worry,
I belong.

With every breath it becomes me.
With every step it receives me,
holds me in gravity’s love.
With every step we marry.

The great tide of earth’s history
moves through me.
I am the chalice of the universe.
I am one of you,
the body of God.
All of you are the rest of me.
I am yours.
I disappear.
I become the Milky Way.

Now I will get to work.

                           —June 2, 2017

            “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me,
                        and let the one who believes in me drink.
            As the scripture has said,
                        ‘Out of the believer’s heart
                        shall flow rivers of living water.’”
                                       —John 7.37-38

Christ, I drink deeply of you.
I drink of the clear water
flowing from your heart,
waters of Creation,
Spirit brooding,
welling up from eternal depths.
I take you into myself.
I drink deeply, and savor.

And behold,
up from the earth of me
flows a river,
the river of Christ,
flowing with healing waters,
powerful, life-giving waters,
river of the waters of life,
bright as crystal,
gushing up to eternal life,
flowing for the healing of the nations,
flowing out from me.

Christ, you are the river;
I am the riverbank.
I drink deep.
I let it flow.

                           —June 1, 2017