Recently Beth and I celebrated our 38th anniversary.
Faith is a lot like a long marriage.
It takes time. It takes commitment.
It gives more than it takes.
There are good, easy times, and some hard ones.
You lean to trust that.
You learn to trust the Beloved.
You learn to trust yourself.
You learn to think of the Beloved
more than you think of yourself.
You learn.
It’s not a thing you have, it’s a way you live,
a way you be yourself, a way you grow,
entwined with another, evoked, reflected.
You come to see yourself more clearly,
more blessed, more gifted, more beloved.
You learn the long road of forgiveness.
You discover the walled garden of vulnerability,
the power of letting go, the sweet fruit of gentleness.
You learn the thousand shapes of love.
You share in something eternal.
You experience the grace and gratitude
of making something grand together
neither of you could have done alone.
Every day, you say thanks.
 

   —June 11, 2018

I’m going to take a break for a couple days.
Every once in a while it’s important to be useless.
That’s the point of Sabbath, that you sit and do nothing,
since it’s God and not you
who made you, who keeps you, who sets you free.
Even if you do good work, even if people need you,
like Jesus sometimes you go away just to go away.
You lose a little of your self-importance.
You renew your God-importance.
You just sit on the park bench with God.
You breathe.
You are God’s Beloved.
No reason.
Just because
God is like that.

___________________
Weather Report

Clearing.
Enjoy the moment.

―June 6, 2018

         Even though our outer nature is wasting away,
         our inner nature is being renewed day by day.
               —2 Corinthians 4.16

         
The great cathedral, reliquary of dust,
stones slowly vanishing, not one on another,
glacial, archaeological, yet prayers still hover,

the vast city built on a plan now lost, underfoot,
abandoned, inhabited now by the unknowing,
descendants of descendants, but still dancing,

the shirt you loved longest, tattered like Grecian isles,
a screen, threads gently departing one from another,
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 husk.
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, is in the seed.
You are the growing child within your aging womb,

the love your flesh inhabits, unfolding, unending,
renewing, chrysalis after chrysalis, your tender Lover
working every wound and find and step into a gift.

This is who you are, the river, not the bank,
the flowing, heaven’s breathing, new, and new,
and every moment singing, “Let there be light.”

   —June 5, 2018

 

Unfailing heart,

walk with me
on this path not made yet.

Make as you do
of this darkness
evening and morning,
a day.

Let this end
unfold
as you yourself become

and with me
rise anew.

   —June 4, 2018

 

         We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ…
         It is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”
         who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
         of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
         But we have this treasure in clay jars,
         so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power
         belongs to God and does not come from us.
         We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed….
                  —2 Corinthians 4.5-8

Here is the secret to happiness:
you are not the jar.
You are the light.

The jar cracks and breaks.
The light spills out.
Nothing can hurt the light.

Breath prayer:

Godly ∙ ray

―June 1, 2018

         Original One,
you for whom so may things
are our desperate substitute,
the only
         One Thing
at the heart of all things,
who we abandon
for so many replicas,

I am astonished
at your abundant generosity,
on this street watching so many
kinds of beauty,
         you

endlessly
         in us
replicating
yourself.

    —May 31, 2018

 

I sat down to my prayers
and I heard angels singing at the window.

I got up to look
and there was only light.

I returned and there was
a lion sleeping in my chair.

I let my prayers
go where they will.

My prayers are wild,
I do not argue with them.

Beloved, you bend over my chair
and behold your likeness.

   —May 30, 2018

         Jesus said to them, “Is it lawful
         to do good or to do harm on the sabbath,
         to save life or to kill?”
         But they were silent.
         He looked around at them with anger;
         he was grieved at their hardness of heart
               —Mark 3.4-5

Harm is being done by racism, violence and greed.
Unless you resist it, you assist it.
There is no neutral position.

Is it faithful to let evil go on,
or to stand against it?
Silence is hardness of heart.

Does your faith lead you
to tolerate it, or to intervene?
There is no neutral position.

Evil will tolerate your anguish
as long as you tolerate evil.

In no choice do you save the world,
but in every choice you do good or do harm.

God give us the faith and courage
not merely to lament the harm we do,
but to do good.

   —May 29, 2018

To honor soldiers who have died
is to confess the monster of our violence.
Regardless of how noble,
they are victims of our fear and rage.

Remember fallen soldiers,
and those who have fallen at the hands of soldiers,
those who have given their lives
and those who have taken,
those who have served in war,
and those who have served in peace,
giving of themselves without violence
for the sake of justice.

Let this be a day not of celebration
but repentance.
In memory of all who have died
by the violence of nations,
we pray for peace
and live in peace.

   —Memorial Day, 2018

 

O Holy Trinity,
you who are beyond all,
and at the heart of everything,
and living in me,
I open myself to you.

You are the Lover
and the Beloved
and the Love flowing between.
I am yours,
and part of you.

O, Thou Mystery,
I give you my wonder.
All I seek to understand
I set aside,
only to be present in you.

O Beloved Presence,
I confess my need.
You are kind,
saving me
from what is brittle.

O Flowing Grace,
your compassion for all beings
is already in me.
I release my small desires
and open myself,
a clear and wiling vessel
for your infinite beauty, patience,
love, courage, and delight.

   —May 25, 2018