Tag Archives: dust

Microprayers for Lent: Weeks Four and Five

17.When did clay first think to shirk the potter?As lungsfirst billowed with breath, sun barely risen? 18.I was not there at first dawn yet I too wake withthe sameserpentine thought in my drowsy brain. 19.Great mystery: that clay should breathe and defy.Greater this:that dried up clay should breathe again. 20.When it breathes, what does theContinue reading “Microprayers for Lent: Weeks Four and Five”

Microprayers for Lent: Week Three

11.Only You with the gentle wind of Your fingerscan sweepthese layers without losing me. 12.Your wind it was that first animated dust –so nowcatch me up in the willy-willy of You. 13.Scoop me, spiral me in the eye of Your storm;swirl meup in Your whirlwind. Enspirit me. 14.For only in the dance and condensation ofYourContinue reading “Microprayers for Lent: Week Three”

Microprayers for Lent: Week 2

5.Dust clogs the corridors of heart’s chambers.Have mercy:teach love to this dust. 6.Clean airways. Clean neural pathways. Clean roadsto love.Breathe clean air in me. 7.Wipe clean eyes overclouded with dust.Give sightto know my earthen flesh in others. 8.(And what of the dust on the countertop and shelves,the haze in my line of sight to You?)Continue reading “Microprayers for Lent: Week 2”

Microprayers: First Week

What is this quintessence of dust? William Shakespeare, Hamlet 1.Ashen brain breathes ashen prayers.My God –can ashes rise? 2.Dust clings to prayer’s mouth.I breathe;Prayer disperses… 3.Dust too collects in glory’s crevices;I longfor life, not death. 4.Water me with the condensation ofYour Spirit.Make me mud to mould.

40 Days of Mercy Week 5: Mercy out of dust

I’ve wanted for a long time to write a series of reflections on the poetry of Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Nelly Sachs. That will have to wait for another time, but this week’s poem comes from a sequence of hers called “In the Habitations of Death”, where imagery of death, dust, longing and encounteringContinue reading “40 Days of Mercy Week 5: Mercy out of dust”

Ordinary Wednesday: Everlasting Dust

While I try to go through each day with my eyes open to the little signs of glory and truth that lie around me in the everyday, some days nothing much catches my eye or sinks in. Today was one of those days, my attention too divided for anything in particular to arrest me. SoContinue reading “Ordinary Wednesday: Everlasting Dust”

The Consolations of Lent

Comfort sits, unexpected, in our waiting with weakness. No giant leaps needed, only the baby steps of the heart slowly learning contrition. Begin with incapacity, then the slow-dawning knowledge that you are nothing but dust. Dust transfigures at His breath. Exhale in the sigh of your Lenten frailty. Then inhale, inspire. O brother in ourContinue reading “The Consolations of Lent”