New Creation

God, my prayers are an unholy mess.
I plan and structure them, write lists
and check things off, and when I’ve
finished, I feel the same sensation of
accomplishment as if I’ve scrubbed out
the commode. But I don’t believe that
prayers are meant to be an inconvenience.
I think you want us to hand you the mess.
I don’t think you get tired of hearing us say,
Here I am again, God, not one bit saintlier
than yesterday.

God, my life is slovenly. I start each day with
pure intentions: to be kind, industrious…
to know my own magnificence, shine with
your radiance… and, yes, to make a
difference. By ten a.m. my noble aims are
ashes in the grate, and I am heavy with the
weight of my undone objectives. I organize,
I strategize, and then I beat myself about
the head and chest because I’ve cashed out
my vitality. Salvage what is left of me, I pray,
and place me on the path that leads to
blessedness despite my awkward gait.

God, I live and move in tarnished splendor.
What you created pure as ice and bright as
gold has faded, lost its shape, grown cynical
and weary of the race. Yet all the elements
remain, and you, God, and only you can
reassemble them. Only you can recreate me,
as you did that first day when the world lay
at my feet. Reawaken me, O God, to your
awesome power and your tender grace.

Amen.

 

 

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From This Odd Dream

In the Flower Garden, Robert Lewis Reid

Dear God, I do not fear awakening from this
odd dream of temporality, nor shall I dread
departing from the steep and rock-strewn
roads we travel. Even as we watch, the veil will lift,
the fog will clear, the sun will saturate our days,
and night will fall no more. Then we shall meet
again the cherished souls whose carcasses have
long since shown themselves too fragile to
contain them. Happiness that we have known
and tried to hold will dawn and fill the vales with
colors richer than the flora of the tropics and the
fauna of the seas. Bliss that punctuates our years
and separates the intervals of anger, sadness, and
regret will bloom and never fade. Sickness that was
once a haggard rumor will meander out of memory.
Love will be the form and substance of all things seen,
imagined, hoped for. Peace will not be ripped away by
swords or savagery. Arms like boughs of oak and fans
of palm will reach out to receive those of us just arrived
out of the dream. Lingering wounds will heal apace,
bathed in water from eternal streams whose source
will not evaporate as basins in the desert do.
Ephemeral, surprising joy that comes upon us unawares
and dissipates too soon, this time will stay and keep us
airborne like the seeds of cottonwoods on fresh spring
breezes, and when we alight it will be only to reside
a space within the garden of thy planting, to perform
the easy labor of thy grace. Earthly life is but a preview
of eternity—we are promised nothing less. If we only
knew it, we have just begun to love, and the dimension
we have named “above” will swallow all things gross
and terrible, the rivers of the darkness, all that withers
and decays. Alleluia! Amen.

From Hopelessness to Heaven

The Testament and Death of Moses, Luca Signorelli, 1482

Divine Beloved, open my heart to your Truth… now that there is room for music… now that I have realized that I had wasted my precious hours and years on earth fearing doom,
inclined toward death…
when I judged and withheld forgiveness…
when I scolded self and others, drowning out angel whispers and celestial songs…
when I despised my guides and teachers… and myself…
when I was harsh and lacked compassion…
when I felt weak and burdensome to this groaning world…
when I betrayed myself and sought approval for my false image…
when I craved prominence and admiration…
when I gave away my ease and my magnificence…
when I forgot to celebrate your bright and manifest gifts….
I heard you through the chaos: Peace; be still.

Surely, you promised, surely I am with you always. [1]

Trust me in the depths of your being…. I am with you and within you…. Quiet your mind in my presence… and hear [my]… blessing:
Peace be with you. [2]

I listened and I heard; but it was not always so. So long I called to you and waited for serenity, but it eluded me. Like the psalmist I cried out to you:

To the God of my salvation,
I called for help by day;
I cried out in the night:
Let my prayer come before thee,
for my soul is full of troubles and the Pit would devour me.
I have no strength,
like one forsaken among the dead,
like those whom you remember no more,
those who are cut off from your hand.
In regions dark and deep I lie; I am overwhelmed.
I have become a thing of horror…
shut off so that I cannot escape.
Every day I call upon you; I spread out my hands to you.
Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do fallen spirits rise up to praise you?
Is your steadfast love declared in the grave?
Is your saving love known in the land of darkness?
Why have you cast me off?
Why is your face hidden from me?
Afflicted and close to death, I am in terror;
I am helpless, drowning in confusion and dread, which would destroy me; they close in on me,
surrounding me like a flood all day long.
Lover and friend shun me;
my companions are in darkness. [3]

Divine Beloved, how the road seemed long and treacherous, though at my creation you had spread before me from the mountaintop a green and gently rolling plain, blue ovals and racing curls of water, distant hills all forested with pine, chattering cottonwoods lining level pathways, mighty eagles in flight, swift deer in meadows and thick aspen groves.
No blighted hills and wastelands did you point to, no grieving storms, no desolation.
You revealed clouds, light and buoyant with the promise of refreshing rain. Crops were thriving in the fields; sheep and cattle grazed at will.

You witnessed my pain and offered me the balm of Gilead;
you spoke to me of peace and healing; I would not hear.
You quelled my stubbornness and redeemed me from the pit.
You taught me to face hardship, to be steadfast in its cold and empty gaze,
to grapple with misfortune, soul to ego;
to be bold in the face of troubles’ bold impertinence;
to unmask the friend or mentor in adversity.

At length, O Father-Mother God, through your mercy I began to notice shape and form within the void…
to give attention to hue and texture in the creeping dawn…
to wonder at the workmanship of shrubs and shirts and shoes and grand pianos.
I began to see how this thing cleaves to that by way of growth or glue or clever carpentry, or by simply wanting to be one with loveliness or stillness or profound compassion and moving toward it, bold or shy.
I was a novice at it, more accustomed to attend to what isn’t here and likely won’t be in an hour or twenty-four.
I was like a tender seedling in the morning after frost.
By day and night I pray for sure footing on dew-slicked grass,
that I might offer water to the thirsty,
encouragement and guidance to the wanderer.
Through your grace I seek clear vision for the something like a destination;
soft landings for inevitable stumbles;
and small arrivals, breath by breath.

And your voice slides neatly through pandemonium: Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. [4]

I asked, Divine Beloved, How can I pray this fear away…
this sense of dissolution, cell by cell and bone by bone,
one digit at a time or all at once?

I cried, How can I, when I don’t know what’s gone missing,
what precise adhering bits of tissue steered my thoughts and guarded my emotions on a sweeter, leveler path;
what benevolent vibrations, pulses, energies have kept me wakeful
and expressed a cosmic gentleness whose source, so little understood,
would become forever cherished?

Dear God, I searched to know what I had taken for granted when I ought to have been grateful;
when it seemed my body had betrayed me. Where, I asked, was Spirit? How concealed?
Perceived as altar or as steeple, or disguised in humble blessings holding all the secrets of divinity?

I confess that I have judged, mistrusted, or ignored the sacred heart of what is elfin, elephantine, or invisible. To perceive myself as anything at all, I fabricated a counterfeit of me, as unobjectionable as organic textiles, artisan-constructed, not beautiful, not ugly, but unused,
instead of draped across a pair of chilly shoulders and a thinly covered back
for an hour’s warmth and comfort, maybe more.

I confess that my love, imperfect and sporadic even when spontaneous, without agenda,
struggled, poorly tended and quickly reabsorbed;
lay inert in my unworthiness…
the smoky aura radiating bleakly from the embers of my heart
into eternity.

But I have heard your promise and have clung to it as to a mast in a hurricane:

In the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.
And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.
In the habitation of dragons… shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness;
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. [5]

In that fearsome hurricane there seemed a force that kept the pieces in the solitary unit known as me from cleaving as when I was made. Tormenting thoughts in neon hues could penetrate with ease the feeble bonds of molecules and atoms, and off I went, like sparks from green wood, failing, failing to adhere, flickering out in the pallid sky. The eyes, wherever they might rest, were helpless to regain the whole, and off I went in shards or streaks or grotesque shapes or formlessly… fleeing particles of the unit I once recognized as me.

They were of the lie, I knew… but why? Who benefits, and in what way? All that occurred to me is I, because the day is short and even now the shadows lengthen; in the dark there is no certainty.

And Truth replied, It is YOUR light that midnight lacks.

O Father-Mother, I confess: Your nature is perplexing in my bereavement. This I know: You live in me; my native purity is Love, and all I need. But even in that certainty, I have felt orphaned and adrift in something near insanity.

And so did I approach you, child to parent, willing to surrender all in order to be reassembled into your intention for me. And you heard my plea:

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy spirit from me.
Restore in me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. [6]

Creator of all things seen and unseen, I cried, what is this somber heaviness in my heart?

Enlighten me, O God. Dispel the lie of darkness with eternal truth.
You have not created fear, antipathy, confusion, rage.
You have left no defects or omissions in the spirit.
Open my eyes to beautiful and eternal love, truth, and wholeness, which are the nature of all creation.
When earthquakes of the emotions seem to shatter peace, swaddle my heart and mind in safety and serenity.
Then, calm and radiant, may I become an instrument of your peace. Anoint me as a physician of holiness, spreading not toxicity but health and divine order.
May my thoughts, speech, and actions proceed from robust joy planted and nurtured in sentient beings by you, O God of grace.
Make clear and shining the vision of all good, however swathed in mist it might appear.
Stimulate my timid inclination to pray without ceasing… to walk in uninterrupted conversation with you, my holy parent, comforter, and guide.

Divine Beloved, open my heart to your love.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. [7]

O Fount of Love, I have known nothing so miraculous as the complete surprise of finding myself made new, in a cloister of astonishing love for which there was no precedent in my experience. I lacked vocabulary for the glories of the great beyond, so long beguiling, out of focus, unattainable … the indistinct eternity of Spirit, a destination I had cherished less than attention and esteem.

By your grace immersed in love, I knew only how to float and be patient through the storms at sea.
Is this the place, I wondered then, where faith, despair, and mystery collide, and would I in the aftermath discover where power lay instead of choosing the idiom of pain that most resembled peace?
Impatient, in a mirage I paddled fruitlessly. The sea is wide; there seemed no light to guide my navigation; I was beyond the urgency of time and tide, yet I knew a buoyancy and wondered: Was it hope or mockery?
For still I clung to mortality and cried into the void,

Is cruelty the grim default and struggle the essential posture,
or does complete surrender breach all barriers and allow a healing wind to embrace the one essential self?

But you, all-knowing, saw beyond the slender orbit, where clashed fire and ice and hopelessness, to beauty, victory, and the infinite embrace.

All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to [you]….. No wisdom is wise but [your]… wisdom; no truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is Life but the divine; no good is but the good [you bestow]…. [8]

I watched with you and witnessed how no ground is gained without a daring leap into the stratosphere, where deathless joy and endless love astound.

Worship me, you gently said, in the beauty of holiness. I created beauty to declare the existence of my holy being… to proclaim my presence in the world…. Even before you knew [my name]… you responded to my creation with wonder…. [The universe is filled with my radiance. Declare my glories to the world.] [9]

And [the people]… called to one another, Holy, holy, holy is God Almighty; the whole earth is full of God’s glory. [10]

---

[1] Matthew 28:20

[2] Sarah Young, Jesus Calling, p. 222

[3] Adapted from Psalm 88

[4] Isaiah 30:21

[5] Isaiah 35: 6-10

[6] Psalm 51: 6-12

[7] I Corinthians 13: 1-8, 13

[8] Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 275

[9] Sarah Young, Jesus Calling, p. 221

[10] Isaiah 6:3

 

Redeemed

Meadow at Giverny, Claude Monet, 1888

Meditation for the Twenty-Third Day of Lent

O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, those he redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. Some were sick through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities endured affliction; they loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress; he sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from destruction. Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind. And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices, and tell of his deeds with songs of joy. —Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

There was no light in the pit, nor was there
another heartbeat, only mine, and that was faint.
We were falling, my cold heart and I. The sides of
the cave were slick, and I could gain no purchase.
Nothing grew there except terror, which swelled
like a storm cloud and would have smothered
me.  And I said, God, I shall never see another
morning unless you lift me with your mercy. I
shall never walk in sunlight unless it be by your
grace. But you are removed from this pit; you are
not in this place. God, can you, even you, forgive
my unbelief? Will you renew a right spirit in me?
Can I ever again know the joy of your salvation?

There was no sound in the pit, nor could I hear
my own heartbeat, and I wondered if the whole
world had grown dark and silent. I feared for
myself and for those I had loved, long ago, when
I was able to love. It seemed that the very
universe had succumbed to darkness. Then my
feet touched a great stone that stopped my
falling, and my hands felt a solid thing, like the
bark of a tree, and when I breathed, a sweet wind
filled my lungs, and I heard a sound, an oboe and
a tympani, and, fearful of hope, I said, God, if I am
redeemed, it is you who has saved me. It is your
strong right hand that even now pulls me from
this deathly cavern. It is your light that warms my
bones. It is your word that restores my life. Are
there psalms sufficient to praise you for your
steadfast love? For the rest of my days I shall tell
of your deeds with songs of joy.

Amen.

 

Guide Our Feet

Giotti di Bondone, Ascension of Saint John

Guide our feet, O God, into your heaven
where we find relief from fear and pain.
O, guide us through the wide, sere, blinding desert
into green, new grass, clear pools, warm rain.

Guide our feet, O God, away from death,
for we would dance with you, and so may we
not walk with tentative or fearful tread,
but confident that where we go, you lead.

Guide our feet, O God, for we would spring
from stone to stone, from tree to tree, and lean
upon our faith in you. Then may we fling
our spirits skyward—O God, give us wings.

Guide our feet, O God, into the way
of peace; from dark to light, from night to day.
May others, witnessing our joy, be led
unto your table, there with manna fed.

Amen.

And Showed the Face of God

Pietro Perugino, Polyptych Albani Torlonia, c. 1491

Why was the holy child born?
Why did Divinity adopt
a human form and walk the hills
of Galilee? Why did he lift
the weak and heal the blind, why did
he cleanse the lepers, cast out demons?
Why did Jesus Christ speak truth
to power, hastening his own
demise? The world would never be
the same, because this wise and gentle
prophet told the multitudes
to set aside the ancient laws,
obeying just this one: Be love.
And in the groves and orchards, on
the mountainsides; along the shore
and in the desert; in the temple
and among the poor, despised,
despairing—those whom he called brother,
sister, child—this carpenter
who owned no property except
the garment that he wore, the sandals
on his feet, gave all: love, hope, mercy…
life and breath… the promise of
Emmanuel—God with us; God
within us. Those whom he restores
to innocence are rich indeed,
beyond the grasp of death and free
from grief and dark despair.
Why did he come? To heal our hearts.
He heals us still. Because he came
one holy night in Bethlehem
and grew in grace and walked the hills
of Galilee—the Word made flesh—
because he came and showed the face
of God—the world would never be
the same, and never shall again.

 

It Is Finished

All that perishes is done, its temporality
expired, its finite span come to an end.
Love dawns, and darkness runs for cover,
scattering to its mysterious retreats,
its caverns damp and chill and inhospitable to all
except the twisted denizens of night. But light
now floods the caves and crevices, and darkness
has no place to hide.

It is finished. Now everything begins, and
what now is, what has begun, is born of love
and cannot die. Remember this, in winters
that descend untimely, blighted by disease
or grief, when pain extinguishes anticipation,
faith is tested and found wanting, hope is lost.
But hopelessness is finished, and despair died
on the cross.

Now everything begins, and we reside
in that eternal morning where the sun
forever rises, lavishing magnificent
abundance on the living—energy for
what we are and what we shall become.

Like seeds dropped carelessly among dry weeds,
for what seemed an eternity we waited, tiny
miracles of life and possibility. We waited
comfortlessly, frozen, numb below the crust
of earth where we’d arrived, not understanding
why or how, borne by which wind or for what
purpose. There we lay, absurdly small and
weak, without the power to exchange our
situation with what we aspired to be—the oak,
the grapevine, even (if we had no other choice)
the common milkweed—anything alive
and free. We waited, with our destinies
obscure, obeying the imperative of life, until
the earth around us warmed and softened,
waking our imaginations. Smothering in
darkness, blind but sensing that the equinox
had come and gone—the sun returned at
last and lengthening the days—how urgently
we longed to break our bonds and dance.
And still we waited, waited on, exhilarated,
frightened, eager to explore; we would have
chosen to emerge before our time, too soon
discarding our protection but for intuition’s
wise reluctance, warning of another killing
frost… and so we waited, waited on, until
we thought that we must climb out of the
grave or die. Denied, we grew impatient, tried
to plan how it would be, and doubted our
ability to push through the detritus of
innumerable seasons, layers of debris that
moldered as we slept—dead grass; damp,
matted leaves; entangled roots of ancient trees
compounded by neglect and entropy… a feast
for worms, perhaps… for us, a trap, impenetrable
by such means as we possessed, without
momentum, drained of will, and utterly unequal
to the task.

So suddenly the moment comes, we are astonished
by the ease of our ascent despite our lack of
preparation, effortlessly rising through the loam
into the gentle light while slender threads roam
underground, revealing infinite supply.  Around us,
pomegranate, lavender, mesquite, and rose bloom
copiously, bearing fruit and indiscriminately offering
their attributes to creatures winged or crawling, great
or minuscule. We have been here before, astride
the grand continuum, awakening in spring, disporting
gleefully on endless-seeming summer afternoons, then
wonderfully ripening, as if we had reserved our true
magnificence for this extravagant display, this final
surge of life before the cycle of decay begins.

But we shall not descend again. Nature now is
satisfied, her laws suspended. She requires nothing
further from us. It is finished, and there will be
no more winters. Without limit, light becoming life
eternally, joy flows in rivers; bliss crowns the forests,
fields, and groves; and we have just begun to live.

All is as the Gospel promised:

In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness
and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.*

It has begun, will be—and we shine on. Amen.

____

* From the Canticle of Zechariah, Luke 1:78-79
“It is finished” (John 19:30)

Invitation to Prayer

 

Come pray with me.

Come with bare feet, dig your toes into the sand, and feel the grains, each one by one, one at a time. Don’t try to count them. You’ll run out of names for numbers long before the strand runs out of silica.

Come with joy and gratitude, if you have those today, and if you don’t, come anyway. Bag your anxiety and heave it through the groves, along the lanes, past cottages and fields of ripe late-summer grain. It’s worth the trek if at the end you give it all away. Cast your fear upon the waves and watch them sport with it. Observed, it will evaporate, or sink, or change. Presently it may become a bird (a pelican?), swoop down, and capture supper in its perfect catching apparatus, made for such accommodation in the way of all Divine Creation.

National Geographic photograph by Laurent Mercey

Ought you bring your anger? Needs must, if it clings like cockleburs that grab your socks and scratch your legs and won’t let go. It has no will or power of its own. Your stockings, though, will have to go. The planet has a use for them. Some mama bird will pick apart the knitting, patiently, as is the way of purposeful activity, and carry off the threads to fortify and decorate her home. Who would have known your thorny socks would ever line some nestling’s cozy bed?

Come pray with me. I’m never far away. Come empty-handed if you can, or bring your baggage. No one minds your temper or your trembling—so many willing hands, strong arms, and sturdy backs there are to share what you can’t manage for the moment. Prayer is never solitary, even when you pray alone.

Come pray with me. You don’t need to wear a hat or shine your shoes or wipe the sleep out of your eyes. Come just as you are into the presence of the Holy One, All-Knowing,
-Loving, -Wise.

As you contemplate the Universe, or fresh growth on the shrubbery, or lunch—and there you are, smug and complacent, having choked down lettuce you don’t care for much—listen for the spirits in the sighing of the wind, as it weaves its way among the trees and scoops up untidy piles of dry leaves. Hear the messages from the Divine. and see eternity in glints of sunlight on metallic specks in sheets of rock… choruses spontaneously composed, arranged, played and sung… the music of vibrations out of silence grown… once begun, not ever interrupted…

…all repeat in every tongue,
“Life loves you. All is well.”

NEEDS MUST—Necessity compels. In current usage this phrase is usually used to express something that is done unwillingly but with an acceptance that it can’t be avoided; for example, I really don’t want to cook tonight, but needs must, I suppose.

The phrase is old. In earlier texts it is almost always given in its fuller form – needs must when the devil drives. that is, if the devil is driving you, you have no choice. This dates back to Middle English texts, for example Assembly of Gods, circa 1500:

“He must nedys go that the deuell dryues.”

Shakespeare used the phrase several times; for example, in All’s Well That Ends Well, 1601:

Countess: Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.
Clown: My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.

 

Mostly I Believe Sometimes

PRAYER FOR A WOUNDED SPIRIT

Divine Beloved, I believe in prayer. It’s breath to me. I need it more than vegetables or exercise or toothpaste… more than I need air.

There are those who scoff at prayer and sneer at those who pray. They say you are not Santa Claus. Don’t they just want to be with you, just hanging out, with no agenda? If they mean to keep on living, don’t they know that you’re not optional? As for those who want to prove you don’t exist… I don’t believe, dear God, in atheists.

Selyalandfoss Falls, Iceland

CONFESSION

On the radio, I heard somebody say we’re always given everything that we require for peace, love, mercy, joy, and sustenance. I know you bless me endlessly, and still I need a net; I strive, I fret about uncertainty and how I am perceived by (pick one: the Uber driver, Starbucks person, distant relative, short guy beside me on the bus, straw-hatted woman at the table by the window drinking lattés as if they didn’t cost more than my shoes); I rush to be on time at the expense of my serenity and otherwise neglect my own well-being while achieving nothing for the betterment of those Less Fortunate; and I know better. Still I strive, still try to harness peace of mind instead of resting in the certainty of your deliverance—now, tomorrow, Saturday, next year, and through eternity.

I confess that at this hour I’ve yet to find that calm, sweet, silent place within. My faith has been waylaid. I got distracted, lured by flash, enticed by overripe low-hanging fruit; and having planted old, dry seeds, I reap self-pity, self-reproach, a heap of jealousy, bushels of bitterness—the harvest of the dreams I’ve stopped believing in, the expectations I’ve stopped trusting but haven’t yet replaced.

FATHER-MOTHER GOD, vouchsafe to me a map that guides me to divinity, a light for navigating in the dark, a chorus of your angels singing “This way!”— something I can follow when the candle sputters and the flame goes out.

Coyote Buttes, Arizona

Divine Creator, if it’s true that thinking manifests into reality, there’s a problem here. My thoughts do not obey me. Disciplining them is like directing fish to navigate the ocean currents differently. When I try to fix my mind on Heaven, it resists. Ideas steer themselves amiss and enter hostile territory, taken and held captive in a cave somewhere, with bats and prehistoric dragons who don’t know what century we’re in and wouldn’t care regardless. The world in its contrariness seems alien, perverse, and perilous (The dragons are hungry, and I’m dessert)…

…but you, O Great Divine, have overcome the world.

Lucca, Tuscany

FATHER-MOTHER, you will never leave me lost and far from home. It is my dread misguiding me, my fear that weighs me down. I pray that you will banish these, my ancient enemies, my legacy of Canaan in my personal geography, where long ago they staked their claim. They should have lost their strength by now, if not their animosity.

Create in me, O God, a clean and spacious heart. Make room within me for compassion; give me energy to act on it and wisdom to choose capably; renew my spirit; and restore my soul’s capacity for joy and happiness.

Marble Cave, Chile Chico, Chile

PETITION

Eternal God, Source of Love and Light, if it’s true that all Creation—every cell and star and galaxy, every mosquito, Twinkie, Oldsmobile, and Post-It Note—is love and nothing else exists, why is it, then, that when I’m knocking on the universe’s door nobody opens it? I wonder if there’s no one home, but all the lights are on and someone’s whispering. I take it personally: They see me but they’d rather not. Why don’t they want to let me in? Because I’m bothersome or insignificant or worse—because I don’t exist? Some part of me believes this, but some other part resists.

Wisteria Tunnel at Kawachi Fuji Gardens, Japan

LOVING GOD, what is this emptiness? Am I in Sheol, where dead spirits go, sleepers in the dust… the place farthest from Heaven, of which Jacob spoke when he said, “I shall go down to my son [Joseph] a mourner unto Sheol”? [Gen. 36:36] Whatever name this pit is known by, lift me out of it. I’m lonely, and my only company is spiders and the stark anxiety that creeps along the porous edges of awareness. Return me to the surface of the planet, I beg of you, O God, where the sun shines, where there are music and activity and reasons not to seek oblivion.

I do, I do believe you made me for a purpose. You had something grand and glorious in mind for me. You gave me passions, interests, and abilities. I used them well… until I stopped believing I had anything to share. Does one invite one’s friends to visit at such a time? “Please come and sit with me while I gnaw my inner lip”? I was asleep too long, dear God. Reignite my reason to keep living.

Bagan, Myanmar

GRATITUDE AND PRAISE

A man of monumental wisdom once said, “Follow your bliss.” But sometimes I have no idea where it is or even if I’d recognize it after all this time. It disappeared when I was scrambling as I tend to do from this amusement to that glittering distraction. I’m ill acquainted with the feeling, having been too long at sea, gone far from home on what I thought would be an odyssey that proved to be productive only for its distance, not for its achievements.

Arriving where I started, only poorer—not having brought home even one cheap souvenir—I’m ashamed. I feel unworthy of Creation’s gifts. Yet you believe in me, and through your eyes I see my poverty of spirit fed, my brokenness repaired, my purpose blessed abundantly, and my soul’s treasury enriched.

I don’t need to search; grace finds me where I rest and dream.

Rice terraces, Yuanyang, China

THANK YOU, GOD, for what the harvest yields today, for life emerging through the winter’s crust, for buds whose promise comes in measured time, unrushed in orchards, gardens, fields; for nature’s generosity to be revealed: great, arching trees in flower, lilacs bursting white and purple, robins gathering selected bits of vegetation suitable for nests in larch and chestnut trees.

Meteora (monastery), Thessaly, Greece

BENEDICTION

An hour before dawn I am impatient for the unrestraint of morning over the horizon, sunbeams dappling the streams and warming fields and woodlands. Breathe, you say. Be mindful of the cardinals’ concert in the darkness, notice pink and pale-blue streaks spreading like an easy smile across the east horizon. Believe in ordinary signs and wonders.

GOD OF ALL CREATION, seen and unseen, I come to offer praise and thanks, seek mercy, receive healing, and accept your gift of grace.

Amen.

by Mary Campbell
September 2015

Photographs
http://homeandecoration.com/the-most-beautiful-secret-places-on-earth/10/
http://www.dzinewatch.com/2012/03/33-most-beautiful-places-on-earth/
http://blog.iso50.com/34647/spectacular-rice-terraces-of-yuanyang/