Let me dig around it and put manure on it.
                  —Luke 13.8

Life-Giver, you pronounce your judgment:
“Surely there is in you (I see it)
a fruit (it is your nature), a gift (I put it there).”
You call me to penitence:
“Here, let me give you more life.
Receive it.”

And this is my repentance: compost.
What was life, then death, turned to life.
Shovelfuls of fasting dug around me,
the hard blade, the removal.
The manure of the failed,
submission to being beneath the lowest.
Accepting offal as a gift of grace.

This is my repentance: I receive.
Deeply rooted, deeply fed,
my soul is satisfied as with a rich feast.
Bread which satisfies.

And then, little buds.
New birds in the branches.

   —March 22, 2019

         Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way
         they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?
         No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.
                           — Luke 13.2-3
                  

You do away with the notion
that good things happen to good people.
You make the rain fall on the just and the unjust.
So you do away with my need
to be better than some, those sinners.
There’s only one kind of human:
broken and forgiven. Redeemed.

I am a sinner.
I am in need of repentance.
Keep me humble, God,
and aware of my need.
In conversing with others,
especially those I judge,
remind me: I am a sinner.
Keep my heart open to your saving grace.
Amen.

   —March 21, 2019

Light and shadow, night and day,
joy and sorrow, rage and serenity,
cruelty and compassion in Christchurch.

Light swells, breathes in, then breathes out.
Earth arrives at equipoise and moves on.
In Boston Spring begins, in Christchurch autumn.

It is not true in God there is no darkness at all.
The universe is mostly so, and beautifully.
A painting without shadows is mere paste.

We seek light, and to be light,
and accept with grace we live in a shadowed world.
Even in heaven there are shadows, and always the choice

to be light,
and to make of the shadows
beauty.

   —March 20, 2019

         Your faith has made you well.

A friend and I are walking with her boys. Ice on the path.
She’s ahead, I’m with Teddy, the three year old.
He slips and crashes to his knees,
feet splayed, face inches from the ice.

He doesn’t crumple, doesn’t wail. Not a sound.
Doesn’t demand that mommy come back.
No pleading, no drama. Doesn’t even look up.
He calmly raises his hand above his head.
He knows what will come next.

Behold.

What a Mother we have, that we have come to know
—we know—
we are accompanied,
we are in need and we will be helped,
all will be well.

Faith, Jesus showed, is not certainty, but reaching out.

   —March 19, 2019

Holy One,
give me grace
to reach out,

to seek you
in your usual
unlikely places:

the unfamiliar face,
the passing moment,
the fruitless interlude.

Deepen my trust
in the root beneath the snow,
the beckoning in the silence.

In the ordinary conversation
in the spaces between what isn’t spoken
you reach out with such a quiet hand.

The beautiful instrument,
you breathe through it,
it becomes my body.

The unsuspected pause
swells with your presence.
By your grace, I notice.

I notice again.
By your grace,
I notice.

   —March 18, 2019

         Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How often have I desired
         to gather your children together
         as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
         and you were not willing!
                           —Luke 13.34

Gather me, Mother Christ.
I am your wayward child,
impetuous and free,
defiantly lonesome,
wholly at risk without you.
Never mind my rebelliousness,
my fear of your fierce adoration,
how I disbelieve
how deeply I need your love
and how deeply you give it.
Gather me in, Mother Christ,
with all your little ones,
all of them.
Embrace me, hold me
long and gentle,
for I am tired and afraid
and will run no more.
I am willing.
Gather me in.

—March 15, 2019

         They said, “Herod wants to kill you.”
         He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me,
          ‘Listen, I am casting out demons
         and performing cures today and tomorrow,
         and on the third day I finish my work.’”
                           —Luke 13.31-32

Crucified and Risen One,
give me your courage to hope in the face of evil.
Give me your patience to serve under stress.
Give me your faith to work for justice
in the face of threat and opposition.
Give me your pluck to persevere when it is hard.
Give me your love, for our love itself
changes the world.
May I meet fear with healing and hate with love,
side by side with you,
who die and rise daily with me.
Amen.

   —March 14, 2019

         In the wilderness for forty days,
         … he ate nothing at all.
                           —Luke 4.1-2

Fasting, I am aware of my privilege:
food at every turn.
         May I never take it for granted.

I am aware of my desire,
my conviction that it matters.
         Set me free from believing I need what I want.

I am mindful of the hungry,
who will not break fast tomorrow.
         May I never eat without them.

I am habituated to fueling for the race,
consuming calories for a hectic pace.
         Slow me down tomorrow, too.

The longer I am hungry the deeper my desire,
the wider— not for food, for you.
         Deepen my hunger for you.
         Satisfy me, and keep me wanting more.

   —March 13, 2019

         He was in the wilderness forty days,
         tempted by Satan;
         and he was with the wild beasts
                  —Mark 1.13

Come with me, God.
I am your little fearful child,
and I need you with me.
I mean to go deep into my blessed darkness,
where fears like fierce beasts prowl,
where gaping caves of wounds reach out
and pull me downward,
where desires lurk and haunt and taunt.
Come with me in your gentleness
to walk among demons
and see in them
in the light of your grace
the little children they are,
afraid and alone,
little child demons searching
for their mother
who is me,
becoming whole.

   —March 12, 2019

         How beautiful upon the mountains
         are the feet of one bringing good news.
                  —Isaiah 52.7

You mail carrier comes,
walks up to your house every morning
and slips this into the little box,
or through the slot—
not mindlessly listening to bad music
or counting the minutes till the route is over,
but with prayerful delight for each recipient,
imagining blessing left behind, satisfied.
What a fine way to live, eh?

   —March 11, 2019