Prayer Before Dawn at Easter
May the light of Easter
come to the dark woods
where I now wait
in this arena of brightening birdsong,
and rise in me in a new way
that I may bring the brilliance
of resurrection—
hope, renewal, promise,
eradication of brokenness—
to a beautiful fruition
in my next thought.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
After taking some photos of a spring tree in bloom this Easter morning, I came inside and discovered this amazing water ring on my counter–the exact shape of the iconic symbol of the Sacred Heart of Jesus:
How could I not believe that this was a sign?
Wishing you signs and blessings and miracles, and a Happy Easter to those to whom this is a holy day. Love to all of you.
In These Times
You have turned to me
in disbelief, shaken
as the earth cracks
like bone
under the plan and force
of stricken minds.
How, you ask,
can this continue to happen?
How, you wonder,
can your tiny prayer matter?
I tell you now
that it does.
That all the tiny prayers
of the world
add up
like the grains of sand
that line the oceans.
Imagine yourself
on the shore of Holy Presence.
Release the answers
you have disguised as prayer.
Receive the messages of love
that arrive on soft waves.
Do not neglect such imagining.
It is prayer.
Walk now, back into your
day which is no longer ordinary,
and be a sanctuary.
Serve love.
Welcome love.
Remain in love.
Photos taken by my sister, Christine. If you zoom in on the first one, you can see rain streaming like tears down Mother Mary’s face.
A Prayer for Getting in the Clear
When you dwell in the dark quadrant of despair
and the book of your life
has become some jumbled hieroglyphics
on a gray, windowless wall,
I stand for you.
I stand on the Green Lawn of a Better Day.
Barefoot, in tadasana, I stand for you
like a mountain, grounded deeply in the earth
and I breathe into my core your garbled chapter.
A violent wind
circles my head like a black wreath.
I remember my own tempest,
how unsure I was of my ability to endure,
how lost I was when my map of Right and Fair
burnt up.
I stand for you at the Crossroads of Change,
my feet firm, the howling wind of shared pain
crossing my head in every direction.
My hands lock over my heart.
Inside a prayer grows wings
and takes flight,
hooks the maelstrom by the tail and trails away
until you and I are both once again
in the clear.
Both photos:
GOLGATHA, 1963 by ALFRED HRDLICKA
Installed at Storm King Arts Center, New York
As I wandered the Storm King grounds, I was drawn to this somewhat remote figure in the woods. It had a presence that I couldn’t name. I didn’t identify the title or artist until after I’d left the park. Golgotha was the site of the crucifixion of Jesus. As I studied the photos I’d taken, layers of meaning revealed themselves slowly in my mind. The splash of sunlight at the heart of this figure solidifies my sense of belonging in front of that sculpture at that exact moment.
Sea Glass Cairn
The Parable of Sea Glass
One summer evening, as dusk gathered on the Jersey shore,
Jesus turned to the kite-fliers, frisbee-throwers,
lovers, loners, and bennies,
and said,
The kingdom of heaven is like this:
At first the crowd thought he was talking about
a perfect summer night, like this one,
but he continued,
An artist made a beautiful glass globe
He beheld its perfection for seven days
Then he let it shatter
Countless pieces fell
into the dark ocean like rain
There they tumbled and tossed
in the storms and tides
Eventually the pieces began to wash ashore
but they were no longer clear and gleaming
with everything perfectly visible through them
from every angle
Instead they were frosted and dulled,
their original color and clarity obscured
by the crust of the ocean.
Yet,
said Jesus,
they were translucent.
A little boy digging in the sand
looked up and asked,
“What are trains losing?”
Jesus smiled.
He knelt before the boy
and pulled from behind the boy’s ear
a huge piece of sea glass
the size of a fist or a fish
Jesus stood and held it out to the crowd, and said,
I tell you this:
hold one another up to the light
and see, then, if you have eyes
Some in the crowd thought he was a lunatic
and wanted to beat him up under the boardwalk
Others fell to their knees, blinded by the brilliant light
shining through the sea glass
For one reason or another,
they all wanted to touch him
But by then he had given the glass to the boy
and vanished.
serene artist 