God

My little hands made like the ceramic angels, little houses of prayer, fingertips touching. My eyes closed, asking, as if prayers were wishes. I knew that God was up and stars were up and one wished on stars. My father’s finger traced the belt and arrow of Orion, the cup of the Big Dipper: Is God in those pinpricks of light? Are those God’s eyes? Can God see me? I press my hands together, close my eyes, and try to quiet my mind. Or is God inside? 

Staying Human

So much I ask God to remove from me, but this service happens slowly, honey-pour slowly. A little less judgment is still a big pool in my heart. Less of the wrong is still wrong. Wrong food, wrong words, wrong thoughts. I wish I could sift it all away, and shine, clarified and calm. Instead, I’m wrought with wrongness. Even when it’s down to a splinter, say, of gossip, well, you know how a splinter festers. But every bit I wish I wasn’t keeps me humble, human. 

Meditation Practice

My father urged me to stare at a clock with hands on it, imagine another hand that swept counter clockwise—fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven—and I my brain started spinning somewhere, anywhere but in the body I was born to. Nothing wrong with my body when I was born, but I was mishandled, and a kind of terror took over, that made the house of me not a safe place to be. (I know I’ve told you this story before, forgive me.) I lived, instead, hopping from cloud to cloud, searching for angels, hoping to see God, like a girl wandering the North Pole looking for Santa Clause. But while I leapt and sought, that backwards clock hand started careening, sweeping faster and faster. I’d blink to try to bring myself back to body, but the hand moved so swiftly, I thought the clock would spin. And my father sat there, grinning, dumb to my flights, patting my head, Good girl. 

Yes

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. –Luke 1:38

Yes, she said. Yes. Brave woman, to walk through the fire of what God presents her with such willingness. Wish I could be that willing. I don’t even like when the alarm clock rings in the morning or if the sun comes through the window before I’m ready to be awake. Awake. If on waking I could pray with openness, instead of holding a secret no tucked somewhere, the bottom of my foot or in my navel. Instead I say, Yes, but. . .with all the exceptions of what’s acceptable. Have I not had my fill of trial and fire? Now what? Flood? I strive to be as Mary, but I fall short again and again. I fall down at this vocation of being a servant. And I fall brilliantly. But I rise. And there is wanting. The wanting to be yes. Yes, without reservation or hesitation.   

Grace

I assemble the evening meal, lay the chicken in the pan, add rosemary and lemon, drop broccoli in a steamer basket. So much plenty in our life, when others have so little. What can I offer up? First, thanks for the gift of a full belly. Blessings to the farmers and workers who tilled the ground. I take much more than I deserve from this earth. I want to tread the ground more lightly. If the earth needed my money, I would bury it in holes, dug with my own hands, planting treasures. In our yard, after the thaw, we will sow seeds, pray for a fruitful harvest, and share, humbled by our bounty.