Our Mother
Who art our earth
Hallowed be your resources
May you flourish more
May we honor your wisdom
As we see it in nature
Thank you for our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses against you
As we recognize they trespass against us too
Let us avoid the temptation of exploitation
Let us be delivered from unwise practices
For you are our home
Yours is true power
In you we should glory
Forever and ever
So be it
I Beg To Differ
Today is not
the first day
of the rest
of my life.
Today is not
the last day
of the best
of my life.
Today
is simply
now.
Just now
That mystical
Magical
All of my life.
The Kingdom of Heaven
The church’s Sequoia
I cannot climb
Its towering branches
Block the sun
Its massive trunk
I cannot hug
On the dry ground beneath it
Nothing grows
BUT
The Christ’s mustard seed
I cup in my palm
Careful not to blow it away
I cradle it
Trusting not to lose it
I bury it in my soul’s rich soil
Soon, by the grace of God
I nest in its low branches
The Tree Swing
Above the ground
Not very far
The swing reaches
Two long arms
High above
To the first strong branch
But can climb no higher
Until the child comes
In the twilight
As the sun hangs
Reluctant
To leave entirely
Painting the clouds
Rose and gold
The child sits
But not to stay
Quietly in one place
No
Hands grasp, holding
The swing’s long arms
Feet stir, scraping
Earth as
The child swings
Up to the rose and gold west
Back through the brown earth
Feet kiss the ground in passing
Back up to the ever darkening east
The child swings
Back and forth
And the swing shouts
For the joy
Of its long arms
Swinging, singing
Free
Shower Thoughts
I remember
Letting my toddlers choose their own clothes
Even when the choices were absurd
Because their growth
Was more important
Then their looks
Or even their comfort
So sometimes
They wore rain boots
On sunny days
Shorts on snowy days
And always
Were colorfully mismatched
I think of my grown children
One has not spoken to me in years
I have a granddaughter I have never seen
One is more comfortable texting than talking
One I see regularly but not often
I think of the years I spent
Becoming comfortable with that
Reality
Not the fairytale of through the woods
Over the hills
To grandma’s house
Smelling of camphor
(what the hell is camphor anyway?)
And homemade cookies
I think of my pleasure
That each of my children
Enjoy their lives
Never trouble free
But less troubled, perhaps,
Than their own childhoods
Now with their own
Families
Their own
Stability
I think of my prayers
Every time I am tempted
To be envious
Of the Facebook stories
Of other grandparents
I think of my prayers
Affirming my love
For my own children
Praying my gratitude
For their happiness
Enjoying my accomplishment
In three wonderful adults
Then I half remember
Jesus’s parable or story or something
Ending in a question
Something like
If an earthly parent would do so for their child
How much more will your heavenly parent do for you?
And I wonder
Is God perhaps less interested in world peace
Than in my own peace?
What God Wants
I spend my life
Trying
Trying
Trying
To figure out
What God wants
What does God want me to be
…to think
…to feel
…to do?
How does God want me to worship
…to live
…to love
…to die?
What does God want me to believe
…to know
…to let go
…to learn?
I keep asking myself
What does God want?
Because I keep doubting
I keep forgetting
That
All God wants is me
Just me
However I am
However I am not
She just wants me.
My Favorite Prayers
Why?
Are You kidding me?
Help!
I don’t even believe in You.
Go away!
Leave me alone!
How could You?
I don’t understand.
Religion is bullshit.
Faith haunts me.
Thank you
For remembering me
That I am made but of dust
And you can’t expect much
Of dust
Except maybe
The occasional sparkle
In Love’s sunshine
Thank you
For loving me
Even when I hate You
Even when I don’t believe
You exist.
Amen
Love
My heart sings With the ordinary I hold his hand As I wait for Word to load He watches an old western Texas Rangers With the sound turned off And closed captions on Because he is deaf My eyes fill with tears Unshed Because they are tears of joy No need to water my cheeks Just fill my eyes As my heart fills with his love Nothing extraordinary about tonight Except everything As always.
Christmas Eve
Dark-skinned baby Jesus
Lay quietly in the manager
Atop the three year old’s
Mondrian lego dump truck
Wise men watch
Quietly
Too wise to intervene
In a child’s over-excited
Stubbornness
Macaroni and cheese
And sweet potatoes
Insistently eaten after
Boston cream pie
But before the
Made by himself
Cookie dough cake
Gathering
Crumbled wrapping paper
Carpeting the floor
Neighbors bring
Christmas greetings
Cookies
And – oh blessed gift –
Their three children
Five adults talk
For over an hour
As four children
Play
Inside and outside
A Christmas miracle
Worth celebrating
Thanksgiving Challenges
To be thankful for:
ToDo lists that never get done
a God I’m not sure is there
the sun shining on dusty furniture
young dreams that never became
wet clothes I forgot to dry
life lived, sometimes well, sometimes not
a marriage betrayed
one time too many
a family broken
in ways that can’t be fixed
friends left behind
when I let life move me on
the winter of life
when the bright leaves have fallen
These are the challenges.
All the rest is easy.