a respite from cacophony:
You are not good enough
Just try harder
Try harder
Do better
You need to do more
God, blow each voice away like withered seeds from your palm.
Do not let them lie there in my soul. Do not let them spread roots of hatred inside me.
Instead, empty me.
But do not hollow me and leave me aching.
Instead, clear me as the wind clears a summer sky;
Let me feel your breeze in every hot, stifled corner.
Smooth me empty as the grey sea before dawn, waiting for the first shot of daylight.
Let me feel the sun rise and spread; let me glitter with a hundred points of light.
What I want today is silence,
To be a stone in your palm,
so that when you speak, I will hear.
--Thanks to Ken Cockroft for the photo: 'Stones of Puget Sound'
I just keep repeating this last stanza in my mind.
ReplyDeleteI do want silence. I want to hear.
Wonderful imagery. A stone in the palm.
These are things that I can feel.
In Community Group, I am always saying how I just can't feel god today or how I can't feel grace.
I am a stone. A cold, scratchy stone.
I can feel a warm palm smoothing me.
N, I started these lines as I was walking yesterday, so tired of the jumble of noise in my head--all these voices, some of them not even bad ones--conversing endlessly. All I wanted was a little quiet, even though all around me everything was quiet. Sometimes, too, when I try to listen for God, I hear the voices start piping up again. I'm sure prayer must be different than that racket--more like being held, I think, like how Bea holds a stone in her hand, every finger warming it.
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