January 1. The earliest memory

May 23, 2016

Kansas City, Missouri

Dear Babette,

I struggle with how to introduce this. I could go on and on about how I'm drawn to the beauty and thoughtfulness of the liturgy, how I grew up in a church nothing like that, and how we're somewhere on the edge searching for where we belong within the church world.  I suppose all of that would be jumbled and distracting.  We're all just reaching for the light in the best way we know how, so let's talk more about the light.

I always remember the words of a friend from college who said, it's just as easy to not mean the words we sing (from on the screen), as it is to read these prayers from a book, as mere words. However, what if when reading these words, we join a chorus that spans the ages, and we feel and breathe them to be our own. 

This morning I stood in my kitchen, the house was still and silent, my coffee was hot and I was listening to a most beautiful and haunting composition of O Come, O Come Emmanuel.  Oh, the great brokenness, the brave hope, the maddening tension of humanity.  It breaks through all of the world and brings me to holy place.  

And so I wonder, in the chorus of humanity, the song rich with beauty, crushing devastation, and determined hope, what will I add?  What note will I contribute to composition of finite souls reaching for the divine creator of the universe?  

Today, I offer this. I don't know whether it is poetry or prose, but I know it's a prayer.  If you wish, turn this on first, I'd recommend it.

May 23, 2016

The sun paints the earth in light and dark patchwork, breaking through the bending branches and leaves
that shake in the telling wind of this new day, take notice, the rain is coming.My soul breathes in the song that reaches for heaven, the aroma that rises from the warm cup I hold, a silence that will not linger.
My heart feels the tension of this world and the greater, not the next, for it’s already here,
stirring within
beckoning onward.
A holy restlessness—an entrusted gift,
that tells me in the language of rustling leaves and sweeping wind that just beyond the veil is a glory unseen.
This is for today, something just for now and fear not, the sea is not full.When my children play  “I spy,” they begin each turn like this,
I spy something in this world that is…
At first I laughed, but then I marveled,
in this world.Oh divine mystery,
Keep us in the place where we look
deeper still, pausing longer, listening beyond.
In all the ordinary of this day,
shake the veil, roar with wind that sweeps, transforms and renews--
the waiting and hoping,
the cracked and crumbling.
Shine through our imperfect fragments
with your flawless light.
Amen.

All my love,

Olivia