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”

We keep finding hearts

We keep finding hearts- tiny golden plastic ones left over from Epiphany craft,not adhesive yetclinging wherever they are scatteredlike stars on the floorboards,the craft table, the living roomto welcome our guests.Nothing scatters so readilyyet sticks so fervently, as thoughsome symbiosis depended upontheir placement on woodand I must spendconstant delicate moments prisingthese hearts from the floor,Continue reading “We keep finding hearts”

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 Weeping Prophet

To be a pariah takes only hateand the unshaken conviction that you,above all others, are right.To be an outcast you only need yellwhen a listening earmight salvage a soul.To be Jeremiah, you need more than that:not only conviction, not only the truthbut the burden of weeping,the burden of love,the knowledge that kingdoms are built ofContinue reading “The Weeping Prophet”

Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 18

But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Jonah 4:4 The answer, of course, has to be no. No, it isn’t right for Jonah to be angry. He has just identified one of God’s must defining characteristics for Israel – His mercy – and framed it as a problem, something to “forestall”. SoContinue reading “Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 18”

Ubi Caritas: For World Mental Health Day

What happens, he wonders,shattered by the mess, by the day,by the constancy of demands,by the ever-present lesson of patience,by the daily failure to learn this patience -What happens, he asks, when my love is broken?Nothing happens. The day goes on,all is reset as night arrives;all but the weight that pulls at his shoulders,that sags likeContinue reading “Ubi Caritas: For World Mental Health Day”

After Curfew

Bins at the curb, I pausein a night of deep quietand catchthe thought that no-one else is here.Sleepy suburban street rarely parties;nights are seldom wild around here.Yet silence catches with surprise:no-one walking home from shops,no night-time joggers,no cars coming home.No feet sharing this curb with mine.And this weekly domestic act becomesa moment of strange resistance,aContinue reading “After Curfew”

Till We Have Our Faces Back

First you will learn about smiles,how much you smile,what’s contained in a smile,what’s implied in the different degrees of smile:in a curl of the lip at a funny thought,in the mouth’s outstretched cornersto greet the close acquaintance, in the sardonic phrase,the empathic moment.All these things you will learnwhen they cannot be seen.And eyes. You willContinue reading “Till We Have Our Faces Back”