Prayer is not

Prayer is not a transaction.
-Lisa Ampleman

Her words

Her words smelt like forest air

Cedar, spruce, a hush of wild raspberries and honeysuckle

Her words gave me rest

Cease from striving, pay attention to this breath

Her words inspired confidence

Laying bare her own fragility, conversation with divinity

Her words were eaten

Critic scorned, peon adored

Her words, silent now

Still speak. 

Tribute to Mary Oliver, 1935-2019

Thank you for paying attention.

Cat-like reflexes

Cat-like reflexes: the instinct to 180 your body in midair to land on your feet

What does this mean when I’m falling?

Unanchored from the steady ground- the routine

Lofted by transitions;

Adrift in change

It means the turmoil of descent,

The stress of disorientation,

The faltering discombobulation,

Doesn’t overwhelm to the point of breaking down

I still land with hope

Fearing not: YHWH will never abandon

He’s with me; I fall into grace.

At work within me, a hope outside of me / Romans 7

Come in the midst of salacious fear
Arise, O Mighty Lover,
Cover

Even take my feeble and obscured words
Rise with strength, stirred
In love for your own

I, too, get sick of me
And so completely loved 
I still be

Being still
Is harder than you'd think
Even so, I'm learning on the brink 

Leaning amidst my own wretchedness
Into your glorious holiness
Into my wholeness 

Lawbound, sentenced prisoner 
Subjected to war 
Mankind's corps

Come in the midst of striving 
Arise, O Deliverer 
Blood cleansing whisperer 

Your body bore
Your love ensured
A peace never-ending 

People in their proper place

The goal of our life isn’t people, it’s God. -Henri Nouwen

Ya'akov has a dream / Genesis 28

This is brokenness, scorched and empty sky
Threats hanging in the air around me, 
I laid down with a rock underneath my head
I dreamt 
Majestic beings rising and lowering
on a staircase
from the dust to heaven.

And a Towering One,
The One, El Shaddai 
(God Almighty)
Promising to me
All my life upturned, fear-running,
I vowed. 

Is this my Father's god?
Is this Elohim 
(the Living Word, the Many Powered) 
It sounds like him, 
giving land,
promising multitudes of decedents. 

My grandfather said, "like the stars,"
This god says, "like the dust," 
spreading blessing east and west. 
This god spoke in my dream.

When I woke I made him a deal.  
If you'll be with me
watch over me
give me food
give me clothes
let me return to my home
then you can be my God
And this stone I set up like a pillar will be your house 
And I will give you a tenth of all that you give to me. 

Then I journeyed on,
 in search of the land of the people of the east,
my mother's kin. 

A picture of love

The dance hall filled with music and roses,
I waited on the sideline,
he asked and I was chosen
to be sought out
and loved
more than I dared
to believe

That's how you love me... 

Everything around you is dying

Echoing a Verdross [reluctant] inconsistency
inconstancy, perhaps,
a liquid, livid, languishing girl  
crying and cracking 
kintsugi material, I'd say with a laugh
an awkward giggle in discomfort of recognizing my own weakness and fragility
let's make light, 
let's replenish the drought of certainty with humor
let's laugh at your verbosity and lack of silence, abstinence of stillness
let's make fun of our failures and start again

If we acknowledge weakness, do we have to eat it? 
does it taste like shit, so we ignore it,
shame it?  
everything around us is dying.

Oh, insecurity, I don't condemn you.
oh, famished tenderling
what are we to do with you
and this bloodied resentment? 
where are we to go from here?

He is the only map 
we have no other way.  
Everything around Him is thriving.

I feel it still, in my garden,
your running, dear, cultivating a culture of competing on 'Empty'-
drybanked this community even in your own
consistent lack of replenishing a 
lack of seeing a
lack of poverty of spirit a
pride, le boulet, carried as a spectacle that 
'i can go a little further, 
'tis only a little exhaustion' blaming
a lack of revelation.

True revelation is reality.

["Everything around you is dying" is a quote from Corey Russell's message at Onething 2018 which I highly recommend]. 

Reclaim / Song of Songs 1

I walk with you through the neglected garden 
Even with you, I'm at a loss to start-

I feel ashamed at the derelict state 
The weeds and bramble outnumber the vines

Overgrown and overwhelming  
Help me comb through and untangle the negativity

Discern, 'where is the healthy vine, where is the knotted pain?' 
What must go, what must remain?

Together, we'll bring restoration
Trimmed and fruitful vines

Renewed silence and healed pain 
 Help me reclaim and take ownership for what is mine

but My own vineyard I have not kept -Song of Songs 1:6

Piercing sight

Soon, soon, soon.

We will see light.

Marvelous, overwhelming. 

Soon, light breaking in
Piercing sight.

We will forget the darkness

(Will we? Or does it still trench and tangle

Abstaining subjugation)
No- we will remember but it will be ever vanished
And we will forever glory in the conquering lion, the lamb in the midst. 

Wondering, wandering, fumbling aside

Great Light, shine

Come and burn the bramble

Brightness bearing down, 
Sooner still, in the flickering of an eye, my suddenly will arrive.