The feeder is empty againand no one is claiming that the birds are greedyfor taking what they pleased. Look at how the fat, pink flowersare weighing the end of each branch,sucking nutrients into each velvet petal.How selfish. Nature hungers, takes and needs.God, why can’t I? Blessed are we, learning to take what we need.Sleeping past…
So, Jesus, wasn’t that illegalfor you to break the sealthe Roman guards put there?Bursting the bonds of death itselfto come again, larger than life?And was it wise to present yourselffirst to the women,so lowly in social standing their word meant nothing in court? And why did you keep appearing suddenlyto the huddled believersbehind locked doors…
Jesus, from that mountainhigh among the olive trees,it would have been an easy walkdown to the city,to Jerusalem, which lay below. So why choose to make your wayon a donkey,on an everyday beast of burden,your feet almost dragging on the ground?And who are these people running, bending low,to spread their precious cloakson the road before…
God, I come to you as I am.It is all I have, really.And the next one I’m conscious ofwill be the same.I can feel the way I move,moment to moment,without the comfort of “solutions.” It seems wild to me now how I imaginedany once-and-for-all cure for this,or a master plan to ensure thingswill work out.But,…
Blessed are you, the pragmatic.You who have run the math and know what adds up…and what doesn’t.You have set it all down.You who don’t hope or dream or plan anymore because… what’s the point? But blessed are you, learning to live here.Your world has shrunk.Pain or grief or fear has sucked upevery bit of oxygen…
God, I will wake up today and move,numbly,into each new hour. I will fill my lungs with the airof an undone, unfinished,never-before-seen day,entirely certain of how I will feelwhen it ends:tired.bored.unchanged. God, even my best efforts—my sacrificial love, my diligent work—don’t stir up anythinglike the rush of accomplishment.Whatever felt like meaningisn’t meaningful anymore.At least not…
You got it right, as poets doMr. Gerard Manley Hopkins,you with the whimsical nameand the solemn truth, that“The world is charged with the grandeur of God,It will flame out like shining from shook foil.” And that despite all that humans are and do“There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” And it calls to us.It…
Blessed are we who say,God, if you are Love, then I want you.I want loveand all that love can do. God, I want to feel your lovefor me in particular,in the body I have now,in the minutes and hours that mark my days,among the people that are mine to love. I want to feel in…
Blessed are you who come with your sorrow, allowing your pain to convey all its truth. Here is where grief is understood at its core, where the dark shadow of betrayal is seen from the inside. Here, my dear, is where the work of healing begins. Blessed are you who mourn as you meet yourself…
I have been propped up on my toes,peering over fencesbut mostly staring at the peeling paint. Hoping has become longing.Wanting has become needing.I can see love everywhere but here. There is a naturalness to the wayother people experience their joyspopping up like tender, spring grasses.The earth, it seems, is always warmand autumn seedlings break openand…
Blessed are you who find yourselfnear to trauma,perhaps even the one closestto the one who has suffered so much. For you too nothing is the same anymore. The air has changedthe furniture of your life rearrangedand the cables that once anchored youto what you knewhave come undone. Yes, you are doing all you can,embracing the…
God, I can’t tellwhich personI will be today:kind and loving,turn-the-other-cheek and I’ll-be-right-here,soft but strong.I will keep no record of wrongs. I might be someone else entirely:brittle and judgmental,I’m-taking-my-share andyou-deal-with-it-alone,hard but weak.I will keep every record, dammit. I am an accountant in this worldthat does not give me what I’m owed. God, these multiple selves, you…
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