A Welcome Prayer

Poetry, Spiritual Direction, Uncategorized

A welcome prayer,
I’ve never heard.
How do you welcome
a mystery?
Something
all muddled
and hidden?

Why open the door
at the ground floor?
If it rains, it will flood
and someone may come
and find it unclosed.
SomeOne may come
and find me exposed

Why do we start here,
at this new prayer?
To help me heal,
to see and to feel?
To let go
To let go
To let go
of what I hold so near.
I’d rather start by a different track.

The why seems unimportant
It is the sinking I find hard,
but I open a crack…
and find the flood.
I knew it had rained.
So there’s no going back.

So unbolt,
uncover,
unfold,
breathe,
stretch,
reach.
SomeOne will come.
SomeOne is here.

Forgiveness

Poetry, Spiritual Direction, Uncategorized

Step over it.
Step across.
Find a rock,
a bridge,
a log
on which to balance,
but step over
untouched.

Traverse the fault
without a fall,
without sinking low.
Find the bridge,
find the rope.

But, step over it.
Step over yourself,
don’t fall.
Step over
the fault.

We are invited to dance across the river that would sweep us away when we are rejected, disrespected or hurt.  We are invited to forgive and find stones on which to stand as we traverse the fault.

Old Homestead

Poetry, Uncategorized

The old home sinks slowly
into the ancient Dakota soil.
Year after year it lowers itself,
year after year it shifts downward,
till it looks like a face with clear eyes
holding an inner wisdom
unknown to those who observe the descent.

Year after year
the house sinks slowly,
while the rocks and stones
ascend as though overdue,
these unmoving, solid
stationary minerals
rising to declare their presence.

They say, Come and See

Poetry, Spiritual Direction, Uncategorized

What are you looking for?
A place
A space
A Life with
seeing  and
hearing,
feeling.
A place that is
not forever far away,
Not distant or gone,
Not just beyond
but here and near.

A Way
to notice and listen
to be aware,
With something to share
with something to give.

Have you ever felt as though you’ve spent a major portion of your life looking for something in the wrong corner? Listening to the wrong whisper, or asking the wrong questions?  Then suddenly someone asks you a really good question! “What are you looking for?”

So, what are you looking for?

Katie’s Child

Poetry, Uncategorized

I saw my grandchild
move in deep silence
as it stretched below
my daughter’s heart.

I contemplate this child
whose history is ahead of mine…
whose influence has arrived
and helps me see… again.

This child,
the incarnation
of love from two,
from four,
from eight
pulls us close to what we know
but cannot see.

And having stretched
it waits
a holy waiting
to see the mystery
it has heard.

So we wait with this child,
we wait as the last robins fly
and as the wind plants gold,
we wait to see God breathe,
the mystery and to hear.

It was autumn and I had been sitting outside by the lake and the yellow birch leaves  would fall every time a breeze came through. We traveled to be with my daughter about six weeks before she was due to deliver her first baby, and I watched the magic of the baby stretch and of my daughter becoming a mother – both holy things.