Category Archives: prayer

Seventy times seven

How many hurts accumulate like straws under a camel’s nose before it sneezes, before the involuntary blast of anger, grief, ugliness propels one’s inside out, clutches at the throat like stone eggs, tears a slow, impassible river floating faded, sodden … Continue reading

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Two or three

Two or three: Jesus why are you afraid to be too alone with me? ______________ #preparingforSundaywithpoetry. This Sunday’s Gospel is full of numbers – no, not of numbers, of people, unalone. Matthew 18:15-20

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Savour

This week’s #preparingforSundaywithpoetry perhaps bears more relation to the stories of Jesus’ original temptation than to his twin command to Peter to, “Get behind me, Satan!” But between those threads, and the idea that one could follow Jesus, taking up … Continue reading

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Don’t we?

It has been a horrible weekend for gun violence in America. I cannot keep my heart from going out to the family of the teenager gunned down at a high school football game, while I was listening to the strains … Continue reading

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On this rock

They set a boulder to blot life 
from the garden, light from the tomb. 
When it was rolled away you spoke 
her name into the morning like dew. Continue reading

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Silent prayer

Nothing is silent. The breath of God is not absent. The wheeze of trees in full leaf hefting their branches in dance. The sigh of waves that fall before they reach the shore. The call of an ant six whispery feet one side of a blade of grass. The sun raging with … Continue reading

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First and last

Do you remember how,in the parable, he paid them, last and first?To the first he was fair, but to the last he was magnificent. Neither knew whether to laugh or shout or fall to their knees; so we, too, swayed between the thirsty and the relieved, envying and blaming each in … Continue reading

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Walking on water

Heartracing like the tideebbing and flowing withoutvolition, permissionbattering this vesselbattered by the moonand its phasesfading Do not be afraidof ghostsconjured of foamand fearsome prayer on the cusp of translation Takea stepmy handmy life and let it betake heartthe storm by … Continue reading

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The mountain

I look to the hills, but from whence is my help to come? Continue reading

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Pressed

What if the robes were reversed and among the throng of sweaty suitors for my notice you were plucking at my sleeve; would I know your touch from the pickpockets of power, care enough to turn and ask what you … Continue reading

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