Oh, perfect mystery.
How rumbling sound of never-stilling waves,
can rock my soul to peace.
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Tag Archives: Peace
Spinning
Recently life has been more than a bit frantic. Working, parenting, housekeeping, wifeing… it has all been pilling up and pulling me round until I am wondering whether dizziness is just my perpetual reality.
And so, as an attempted remedy, I spent some time this morning in grounding prayer. Prayer in the sense not of speaking, but of listening. Of sitting in silence for the still small voice to speak to me.
And today, that voice spoke to my soul in lines of poetry.
Spinning
Like a child’s spinning top
I launch myself at frantic speed
seeking the velocity
to let me balance on a tiny point of contact.
But
in my enthusiasm,
or anxiety,
I push too hard.
No elegant display of spinning speed,
no ballerina poised on point am I.
I am the wobbling, panicked top about to
CRASH
And
in my panic I reach out,
reach down,
my hand and heart both grasping for the solid ground,
for grounding,
for a source of steadiness outside myself.
There
in that contact
I remember:
that I am spinning on a world that spins as well,
and the Master Spinner does not need my feeble speed
To make the world go round.
I can rest here,
and know
I’m spinning still in glorious mystery.
Be With: Day 29 of the April Poetry Challenge
No introduction today. Sometimes the soul can only speak in poetry.
Be With
“I just want to be with you.”
my child’s plea
so sweet,
so simple.
a stutter trying to interrupt the fast-revolving wheel
my spinning presence
in no moment standing still.
It feels unnatural to stop
with no objective
no self-validating task.
to only be
be with.
And later, open journal in my lap,
I grope for prayer,
for words to wake a passion in my soul,
to feel connection to a God I’ve walked with for so long
but feels tonight so far away.
Then, as my pen spills ink across a page
of spinning words, I feel an urge
a child’s longing
simple words that spell themselves
into my prayer.
I just want to be with you for a while
be with.
An image that my daughter loves
presents itself to eyes closed more in weariness than prayer.
The sister who sat at her master’s feet*
eschewing spinning,
whirling,
soul-consuming tasks
to sit and learn.
“She chose the better part.”
Rebuke refused, and welcome given her instead,
the disciple who knew how to be
be with.
I want to be that eager girl
whose eagerness leads not to movement, but to peace
to patient sitting,
waiting,
listening,
knowing I will
find all that I seek
and even more
if I can simply learn to be
be with.
* The sisters referenced are Mary and Martha, whose story is told in Luke 10:38-42.
