Dearly Beloved,

                      Mark 10.46-52

Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting beside the Way.
             What is the Way you are beside: something incomplete,
             something not yet happening? Offer it to God.

He began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Many sternly ordered him to be quiet.
             What has silenced you?
             What has kept you from rushing headlong to God?

Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.”
             Imagine Jesus calls you.
             Jesus wants you. Wants you near.

They called the blind man, saying to him,
“Take heart; get up, he is calling you.”
              Recite these words to yourself.
              Take heart; get up, your Love is calling you.

Throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.
              Your souls is not as timid as you:
              casting your safety aside, leaping, unseeing, to the Beloved.

Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?”
              Let him ask you.
              And again.

“My teacher, let me see again.”
              What would you see?

Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.”
              Your crying out, your soul’s leaping,
              your blind begging is holy.

Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
               What is the new Way you will follow on?

Pray this all day long without ceasing:
             “Jesus, Beloved of God, have mercy on me.
             “Jesus, Beloved of God, have mercy on me.”

 —October 24, 2018

         Jesus said, “What do you want me to do for you?”
                        —Mark 10.51

When you discover the deepest desire of your heart,
         you find that it is God’s desire
                  to give it to you.

The question is not a trick or a test.
         It is an invitation.
                  It is an awakening.

What you you want?
         What do you really want?
What do you really want?

Already God’s desire,
          a seed in darkness,
unfolds.

   —October 23, 2018

Some days, like his morning,
I sit down here and the page is blank
and I don’t know what to say.
There are a couple thousand of you
waiting to hear a Word,
and my mind is blank,
and the page is blank.
And I wait… and nothing comes.

And I pray, “God,
what do people need to hear from you today?”
And I wait…
until I hear this:
that this question―

“What do people need to hear from you today?”―
is what we need to hear.

That each day we are sent into this world
to be a channel of God’s Word,
God’s healing, empowering, life-giving Word,
and we don’t always know how that word is pronounced,
how to convey it, what to say,
until we enter the day and meet the people.
That a good way to live a day
is to live it continually asking,
“What do people need to hear from God?”
and to live the day listening,
listening for God’s word,
not my own gripes and likes,
not my own opinion, but God’s Word,
and to speak that word
to whoever needs to hear it.

And the word is probably not made up,
but drawn from deep within,
if you’re really listening―
kindness, probably, or courage, or challenge, or hope―
a gleaming creation hidden in the silence
and spoken into the blank page of the moment,
a possibility they didn’t know they knew
until you said it.

―October 19, 2018

The great cathedral, reliquary of dust,
stones slowly vanishing, not one on another,
tumbling over eons, glacial, archaeological,

the vast city built on a plan now lost,
underfoot, abandoned, inhabited instead
by the unknowing, ghostly, unmoored,

the shirt you loved longest, tattered like a map of Grecian isles,
a screen, threads gently departing one from another,
and the years it recalls, also faded, emptied,

the characters you’ve played, all victory and debacle,
the strength to bend this world to you—all is paper wrapping.
Your flesh, your proof, your precious dust—all go.

Let them go, let them be, or not be. The husk gives way.
The miracle, that most is, lives in the seed.
You are the growing child within your aging womb,

the love your flesh inhabits, unfolding, unending,
renewing, chrysalis after chrysalis, your Creator
every moment breathing, “Let there be light.”

―October 18, 2018

         Then the Holy One answered Job out of the whirlwind:
         “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth,
         when the morning stars sang together
         and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy??”
                        —Job 38.1, 4, 7

God doesn’t belittle Job
or criticize him for his lack of knowledge.
God reminds him
that his life, even his suffering,
is part of a great, grand wonder,
that Job is himself a vast marvel
of which only a little bit
is Job.

Oh, Universe, you,
don’t be made small
by your anguish.
You are not your pain.
You are more immense,
more wondrous, more beautiful.
Your brokenness is held
in our infinite Oneness
and even your peace
unfolds beyond you.

   —October 17, 2018

         The New Human came not to be served but to serve.
                        —Mark 10.45

James and John want to sit at the head table with Jesus.
The others are indignant, not because that’s wrong,
but because they want those seats.

We all do. We think our faith is for us.
We think we get saved one at a time.
The soil of my sin is that I think I’m myself,
not all of us.

We are members of the Body of Christ.
Last is first and first is last
in this circle
because you are we.
Each of us is all of us.
Vine and branches.
One suffers, all suffer.
To take care
is to give care.

Humble service
is the only way to be yourself.
The Beloved of Heaven
kneels at our feet.

   —October 16, 2018

God, Beloved Mystery,
I prayed to you and never felt your answer,
and then I realized I was not seeking you,
I was seeking the feeling.

This silence is not you ignoring me.
It is your answer.
You are present,
even beyond my sensing,
gazing at me in love,
as if to say without words,
“Peace, child,
I am here.”
You gaze, beholding me,
too adoring to speak.
Holding me is enough for you.
So I wait, opening.
Your heart, a tide,
rises.

―October 15, 2018

         Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel
                  to go through the eye of a needle
         than for someone who is rich
                  to enter the realm of God.”
         “Then who can be saved?”
         “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God;
                  for God all things are possible.”
                                          —Mark 10.25-27

Funny how they’re sure
there must be some way to get ourselves saved,
that somehow it must depend on us.
But if you’re drowning and you can save yourself
that’s not being saved,
that’s swimming.
Being saved is receiving what you can’t do for yourself.
Even by being righteous, holy and deserving.
Even by being a slightly good person once in your life.
You can’t give yourself life.
You can only receive it, like birth, like breath.
Life itself is impossible without God.

Who can be saved?
All of us, since it doesn’t depend on us at all. At all.
Give up trying to deserve it.
Give up trying to get it, manage it, control it,
understand it, or accomplish it.
Just receive it.
Let go of everything you cling to, all those possessions,
even both your goodness and your undeserving,
so your hands are open.

   —October 12, 2018

         It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
         than for someone who is rich to enter the realm of God.
                             —Mark 10.25

All of your smarts
don’t fit in the lifeboat.
Your accomplishments
are too heavy for this parachute.
Even your thoughts
are only junk in your pockets.
The ideas people have of you,
even your own,
make quite a pile,
don’t they,
enough to fill a grave,
too big a pile
to fit through
the tiny door to heaven,
the little keyhole
into real life.
All that fits through
the needle’s eye
is your soul.

Why are you
afraid of that?
Thread this realm
with your beauty.

You are a song,
it passes through,
whole and perfect,
and fills the world.

   —October 11, 2018

         You lack one thing;
         go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor,
         and you will have treasure in heaven;
         then come, follow me.
                  —Mark 10.21

You lack one thing.
What is that one thing
Jesus knows you need
to lay your hands on
and set out to the curb?

What impedes your headlong rush into God’s arms?
What treasure weighs in your pocket,
what railing do you cling to
even as you long to leap
over the tiny abyss between you?

Surely your riches, but more.
Your expertise? Your approval rating?
The despair that enfolds you
when you face the fright of the deep unknown?
The familiar failure that nestles you,
hides you from the risk, the ask, the new?

You won’t find it reading this.
Go sit in silence and listen for the beckoning.
See what arises to stop you.
Then lay your hands on it, my friend,
tie it down and walk away.
The one thing you lack
is your freedom.

―October 10, 2018