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Sunday, March 17, 2024

taught with tension

Breath and flesh

And fire too

Held in a longing 

A desire responding

Unleashed and yet restrained 

I’m seeking and searching 

We’re communing and birthing 

A life, a love, a name 

This season is about finding the rhythm to flow 

Holding a rope taut with tension and expectation

While apart and until we’re close

 


Saturday, March 09, 2024

Becoming a longing

Prayer is nothing more than becoming a longing for his. -Cardinal Ratzinger 

Saturday, January 13, 2024

I’ve got

I've got a furtive heart shyly glancing 

I’ve got lists of words and transliterations and translations, Grammar rules scribbled, later found to be unintelligible 

I’ve got a vacuum of dreams; Something about war that steals the hope for the future, the proximity of good too distant to be laid hold of 

I’ve got a weariness in my bones, cold and scoured by the wind of sighs and water of tears 

I’ve got lifted hands, upraised and emptied, waiting to be filled

I’ve got self control, perseverance and joy, I administer compassion to myself and my enemies 

I’ve got a reward I’m leaning into, a face shining from a recent conversation about glory covering the land as the sky encompasses and holds the whole earth 

I’ve got a song, a new song unfurling like a banner, carried by many who belong to each other and raise their voices in thankful union; body and blood communion; held and holy.




  

Monday, January 01, 2024

Journey of things unfair

If knowing answers to life’s questions is absolutely necessary to you, then forget the journey. You will never make it, for this is a journey of unknowables—of unanswered questions, enigmas, incomprehensibles, and most of all, things unfair. -Madame Jeanne Guyon

It is a wrestle
And ultimate surrender: I am not God 
I do not make and I do not save
I am a needy creature
With longings and bias 
And only the creator knows the end from the beginning, 
and is working it all for good.
To trust in your infinite goodness and wisdom 
To rely on your sovereignty 
To press on in faith 
That is the journey.
To accept the things I cannot change 
And change the things I can
That is the journey. 
To keep hoping and loving 
Because you loved me first 
That is the journey. 

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Then the end

Pangs got me reeling

Cries keening like bells pealing

Reckoning with the feeling 


That it’s all ending

Too much spending 


Overdrawing the account of lives and blood 


Breath and wings

And soft dying things


Blood let out 

Without a shout 


///


Why are we waiting for death (exasperating, anxiously horrifying, gripping and stunting, stealing and snuffing [out]). 

Death I don’t want to wait for you

I’d rather meet you, head on

Face to face 

And die 

I’d rather kill you 

Than watch my sons die

My brothers bleed out

My father wheeze away

Oh death, your sting permeates

Oh grave, you’re winning. 


///


“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.”

Matthew 24:6-8


Saturday, November 25, 2023

Noticing is prayer

Noticing is part of prayer.  It’s being attentive to His working in and around us.  Being attentive is part of the conversation of prayer.  Prayer is conversation – a dialogue between Creator and creature. And all of this – noticing, being attentive, being in dialogue with Him throughout the day, with more noticing and conversation – is all part of abiding.  It’s living life WITH God
-Claudia Werber

Friday, November 17, 2023

Materials for a broken heart

Glass, preferable brown and broken into shards. Green is also acceptable, but not clear.

Yarn, dyed black, red, brown or white. 


Roots, tangled and dried.


Red Wine in a Tabasco bottle. 


Clay, dirt, but no sand. Pebbles but no rocks. Stones of white, or gray, but not tan.


Tears in glass jars, as many as you can fill.


Oil of olives ‏من جدتك from last season. 


Sinews, no bone.


Knotted shoelaces.


Jax, metal not plastic.


Aluminum bottle caps.


Ashes


Wakefulness and ache, grief borne of desire unmuted and lasting benevolence.