ways of praying: a woman and her wilderness

Even though nothing

2005-04-17T16:54:00.000-07:00

You gather to yourself but are never in need.
You are unchanging yet changing all things.
You search even though nothing in you is lacking.
I cannot begin to unravel the great mystery that is you.
I pray for the grace to live baffled.

wherever the sun

2005-04-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

wherever the sun

in the sky I find you

created me to come out

roaring

you so tempt me

2005-04-16T18:35:00.000-07:00

emptier I am
the less I seek
you so tempt me
to the foot
of your tree
o god
you beautiful fruit

The good that is life

2005-04-12T05:58:00.000-07:00

In stone, O Lord, you hint at eternity. In water you exalt movement and change. Snow reminds us that grace covers great and small alike while sun promises a new beginning each day. You yourself are magnitude and beauty, and this world provides but the smallest evidence of your character. O Lord our God, protect us your creatures and creation. Bear us up since it is you who will carry us into the good that is life with you forever.

prayer to a morning god

2005-04-07T16:14:00.000-07:00

still dark my rising goodbye

bed my lover warm love

I leave for an altar

of old wood

and older

god

god

can I ask you something

hush red bird

of thought

watch the ordinary

candle

what light

it brings

prayer to a nighttime god

2005-04-06T16:41:00.000-07:00

if you have hands
put them round
these tempests

and bestow sleep unfilled
with alarm

bed down the fire
of minutes
I can’t forget

then settle the furious
swine that eat the pearls
of my dreams

help me to delight
which means give me rest
from my longing

so that I may live
until I can fly

who can live

2005-04-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

who can live

without you

the constant cause

of inconstant things*

nothing can take away

from what you love

and you love me

tell me

you love me

*the constant cause of inconstant things is a line from St. Augustine's Confessions

Here I stand

2005-04-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

There is no room in me which can begin to contain you, Lord, yet here I stand. The house of my soul is too small for you to come to it, yet I invite you in. Faced with the divine, I pray you will have mercy on me this day if I cannot find words to speak to you, the Unspeakable. Lord, let me forget what I have been. Let me forget what I have done. Let me remember you are eternally inviting, "Come, sit, live and be mine."

a window, a night

2005-04-01T18:42:00.000-08:00

sky beds day

and the heavens

color

I am left

with a window

a night

some hunger

A return to prayer

2005-04-01T06:30:00.000-08:00

I.

New light on flower beckons outside, Lord, yet I am overwhelmed by inner darkness. Turtles perform a ceremony of stillness, and wildly I can think only of coveting their shells for a place to hide. My head rests on the dust of my heart even as last night’s rain has given the ground what it needs to make new life. God, my God, I am healthy, loved, sheltered and fed. What do I know of need? In this dark heart, I pray you will grant me a blossom.