God chose us to win salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who died for us so that, alive or dead,
we should still live united to him.
I Thessalonians 5:9-10
Whatever I have beholden
to beauty,
taken into the curves
of attention as offering,
to beauty,
taken into the curves
of attention as offering,
may it be like a child
leaping from the lap of joy
into the sheets of light
strung through our hanging hours;
leaping from the lap of joy
into the sheets of light
strung through our hanging hours;
may it be like the work-worn
hands of women
opening the pins of rest
from the lines of darkness;
hands of women
opening the pins of rest
from the lines of darkness;
may it be like our old hearts
speaking a broken language of hope
in the country
of despair;
may it be like hands
joining
down the long pews
of peace;
may it be a song flung
into the incorrigible,
huddled wood
of our loneliness;
may it be love
billowing through the folds
of one another,
into the gift of you, Lord.
speaking a broken language of hope
in the country
of despair;
may it be like hands
joining
down the long pews
of peace;
may it be a song flung
into the incorrigible,
huddled wood
of our loneliness;
may it be love
billowing through the folds
of one another,
into the gift of you, Lord.
Cynthia, this is fantastic. I love this piece. It is one of my absolute favorites. There are so many phrases, words, and rhythms that stand out. (all of them!) this piece is packed. It is simultaneously intense and soft. I will sit with this piece again and again. Thank you for putting this energy into the world. Love and light to you ~
ReplyDeleteAh thanks Amy! I enjoyed writing this prayer so much...it was a gift. I am grateful for your reading it and commenting so generously. It is a very small homage to the outpouring I have received from beauty and love. May God continue to bless you dear friend....
DeleteCynthia, as I sit with this piece it speaks to me of thank offerings. It reminds me of how we are to approach God first with thanks, and then with praise, and then with petition. You are offering your blessings back to God; all the things you have been blessed to notice, blessed to see, in and through, and around and beneath, and on top of the challenges and hardships of our earthly journey, you are asking God to take them back into himself. And the last stanza brings us to the reality that we are all connected. I think it is the monks of New Skete who speak about the fact that since God dwells within each of us, the closer we get to one another in community, the closer we get to God; the closer each of us journey toward God in the midst of us, the closer we all become.
ReplyDeleteEach metaphor is intriguing: the curves of attention, lap of joy, sheets of light strung through our hanging hours, pins of rest from the lines of darkness, folds of one another... I love the domesticity: the child, the laundering sheets, work-worn hands of women, lines, pins, the landscape within the church and without, the emotional landscape, how "billowing" takes us back to the sheets of light. Excellent and Bravo!
ReplyDelete