35.Can clay say to potter, Why did you make methis way?Clay traitor greets potter with faithless kiss. 36.Soldiers kick up dust beneath urgent angry feet.Creatorof stars and soil is still. Dust covers Him. 37.Before they flee do His shame-faced friends recallbrieflypalm fronds, dusty road, humble king on donkey? 38.My feet, like theirs, carry the fallenContinue reading “Microprayers for Lent: Final Week”
Tag Archives: Jesus
Microprayers for Lent: Week 6
28.(But can You make my wilful will as soft, aswilling to change at Your touch as this clay?) 29.Some days I could see You transfiguredand barelynotice. Transfix my eyes. Show me truth. 30.First, this truth: You became clay, became dust.The potterbecame like the fragile clay He made. 31.The same hands that sculpted soil into lifenowContinue reading “Microprayers for Lent: Week 6”
New Year
I no longer resolve,fatigued by my own failure,all previous years’ zeal turnedto crumbs surrounding my table. Instead I will sweepand, in sweeping, take noteof these archeological layers,the fossils of all these discarded selvesand all I thought I could be: the days I failed myself before sunrise,the anger that burned before the day felt its heat;theContinue reading “New Year”
Advent 5
As a child, it was alwayspure anticipation, the sense of somethingpouring out of a constantlyself-filling source, readying itself solelyfor our delight. Now I keepthe list running in my head of allthat is not yet done, might not be done withoutmy doing. Though gifts still beckon, so toothe slowly nagging sense of somethingthat must be filled,Continue reading “Advent 5”
Advent 3
So rare the still point.We must come backto the same place in tinystolen moments to seehow grace grows in spite of us.Infinitesimal changesslowed and tardied by oursenseless flurryyet growing all the same.The child gift grew with Mary’s Yes;may I be quick to slow to You,to give my Yes to Your life in me.
Waiting 7: Huldah
When the king, garments torn with grief at the broken law,sent messengers to me in hopes of hope,I thought at first, Have you come to me, notJeremiah, looking for a mother insteadof a firebrand? It mattered little.You cannot soothe a fire with lullabies,can only shout loud and clear that the whole town might hear.For sometimestheContinue reading “Waiting 7: Huldah”
Waiting 4: Miriam
Forty decades in the desert and we were worn down, weary from our weakness, despairing of doubt,catching past only in fragments like morning manna: a whiff of Egypt’s garlic, a vague floating thought of dangerslurking like crocodiles in the Nile.Some fragments heavied us with the burdens of their memories: water bursting angrily from rock,rebellions andContinue reading “Waiting 4: Miriam”
Resurrection Bread: A Holy Week Poem
This week, in the lead-up to Easter, my personal thoughts about the Resurrection found themselves expressed in the form of a sourdough starter that I was growing from scratch. Each day I wrote a five-line reflection on the process. While Jesus’ death and resurrection is of a scale far bigger than anything growing in aContinue reading “Resurrection Bread: A Holy Week Poem”
40 Days of Mercy Week 6: Mercy at the Cross
As we move closer to the time of remembering Jesus’ death, this week’s poem comes from Ukrainian-born poet Anna Akhmatova, whose poem sequence “Requiem” explores the grief that she and others witnessed of the height of Stalinist rule. One striking image that Akhmatova returns to continually throughout the sequence is that of a mother mourningContinue reading “40 Days of Mercy Week 6: Mercy at the Cross”
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”
The Consolations of Writing 