Considering

Found this quote from Scott Russell Sanders in Landscapes of the Soul: A Spirituality of Place (by Robert Hamma)...

Thawing dirt also breaks the grip of winter in me. The promise of new life in that loamy smell gives me courage to ask questions that I have been afraid to ask.

Maybe that is one reason I came out here. To smell Fall and Winter, to feel Spring on the air and my taste buds, to find courage in the shadows of the pine and questions new-dangling from silken lines of spiders' webs...

Consumed

The woods are aflame with autumn. Lemon yellows, burnt oranges, luminescent reds glazed with pink. Grasses bend amber, wave gold. Leaves drift and swirl on invisible eddies of warm air.

I search for words of praise, but find I am speechless. Instead, I close my eyes and become a wisp on the wind. Diving past the neighbor's dog, a near collision, then on again over the grey house... now flying with sparrows. Something inside me feels like fire, a sure melting, a merging with Spirit I sense in beauty. All this beauty.

Setting the world afire.

Word

I had thought, been taught, to hear You, seek and expect You, taste and touch and glimpse... You...mostly through your written word. I had thought. Been taught.

But these past days when the breeze has been undoing me, whispering across my skin, and the sound of a single bird "caw, caw, cawing" has pierced my inattention, I have become again a child... seeking you first not in words but in wineberries, red and tart that burst sweet and sour on my tongue. Feeling you in sunlight that plays and alters my very body, turning me golden brown.

I find myself drinking You, biting and pressing You against the roof of my mouth, closing my eyes and hearing You in the sound of a violin, seeing you in the blink of my children's dark lashes. You touch and grace me from the time of morning's pale light 'til darkness descends... and the stars say softly, "Didn't we tell you, child? The glory of God, the glory of God, the glory of God..."

Touch

I think I know each line and curve of this neighborhood. Where the sidewalks end. Rosebushes beside wagon wheels, as they have been for years. The row of cedars. Square rocks like enormous buck teeth hanging over the roadside. Feathery Japanese split maples and a heart-leaf tree that shivers in the breeze.

Still.

This night, which would have been black by now just a few short months ago, is barely grey pearl, misty over the river. I run past the white ranch only to see in spring's new light... a garland tree. That's what I want to call this lovely sight. Flowers hang, clustered in feathery lengths 'midst tiny green leaves. Like bridal garlands I've seen at so many Indian weddings. Tokens of love draped over my path.

And.

Someone has planted posies. Yellow marigolds at the bare edge of a lawn.

I thought I knew each line and curve of this neighborhood. Each line and curve of You. My heart leaps up. You touch me. Unexpected. Delight.

Fragrant

In the dark, I run. Cares of the day run with me.

This hope. That dream. Worries. Regrets. Struggles. It is hard to see around some of these corners, hard to feel that things will open, shake, rattle, release, smooth, fall away, soar or settle. The darkness lacks definition, hides the way, makes me wonder.

But then. Then!

I descend, past the blue house, barely blue now in the shadows of night. And fragrance bursts like a river of invisible sweetness. Is it... Lily of the Valley? Lilac? Tiny irridescent white bells ringing assurance? Or lavender promise hanging like grape clusters just beyond my reach?

Cannot tell. Cannot know for sure. But I am surrounded, intoxicated beyond words. You are here, Sweet One, on this hill, in this dark, flooding my senses, my way.

Sides

Sometimes, before dawn, it is like You and I are "this close",
eyes to blinking eyes, lips a bare whisper apart,
I can almost feel your teeth beneath my tongue,
touch the thrumming of your heart.

Sometimes.

Then morning rouses me, the moment flees. There comes again
the truth: a sheet of glass, a pane pure and almost imperceptible,
achingly thin, rising up between us...You stand on one side, I lean
on the other, looking, silent.

Still, I raise my finger, tremble, reach. For one brief moment,
I am magic or maybe it is You resurrecting a Cistine sky. We touch,
fingertip to fingertip, a quick light touch defying reality of space
and matter. As if, in that small place, all had turned to
empty air between us.

On my side of the glass, the touch has been
enough. And not enough.


"For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then we shall see face to face.” (1 Cor. 13:12) Newer translations are "mirror dimly", but the old image is perfect for this prayer.

RELATED POSTS:

Mark's I Just Want God...

LL's Old Stone Church

Charity for Charity, II

It is cold in the little woods. My eyes shut against the day. I fret in darkness. Make lists of all the things undone.

And then, what feels like an invitation. "Come on, open your eyes."

I do.

I do, only to see bright red berries on the thorn bush. An embrace of golden-red light laid 'round the base of the pine. How can I tell You what this does to my heart? It is a moment, a warmth, a comfort, perhaps a promise before dusk.

Lord, send such promises to my dear Charity. Give her strength to glance, and take it in. Charity for Charity... Your Presence made real in some simple moment. Your comfort in embrace.


Charity for Charity, I

Dry

The breeze is relatively warm tonight, dry. And the leaves, also dry, skitter along behind me. I turn, thinking surely something is there. Darkness covers their trail, but I hear the scratch, the raspy skid, in any case.

Around the corner, I come upon dry grasses that look like miniature bamboo. They wave at me, eye-level. And as they move, a sound like a lady's crinoline sifts into the night. A lady's crinoline, or a maraca filled with tiny beans by some child's hand.

There are branches everywhere, dry. Curved against the deep blue night. Their true shape visible, lovely. And beyond them the stars peek through, tiny lights in a mistless sky.

My heart fills with sudden praise. You are here. In this dry place.

Lean

Here in the little woods, as I lie back and sigh, I see a fallen pine branch to my right. Its needles are brittle, hanging, dry. The once-smooth bark is lifting like scales, or tiny teeth, breaking by small degrees.

The branch is an arm, or seems to be, draped and limp, weak. Fallen, leaning onto the forsythia, which is yet supple in mid-winter...curved, buoyant even in the bitter cold, its leaves yet hanging on.

And I feel suddenly that this is me with You. Me, leaning in a breathless swoon. You, a curve of strength beneath my soul. So I lean. Lean in. To the comfort of You.

Just

Sometimes there is nothing going on. No words I want to say to You. No thoughts in your direction. We are just... together. Spirit brushing past spirit in the small places of the day. The sound of each other's breath. The stray piece of a garment, peeking out from the edge of some moment. Quiet glances, or none at all. And it is enough.