My friend Becca passed this along to me. It’s a poem/prayer by Steve Garnaas-Holmes on his Unfolding Light blog. Go there.
Yes… yes. I needed this. Today would have been my father’s 66th birthday. It is a rock-em-sock-em day… but in the midst of it, I will remember him.
God, I am rushing, just brushing by, passing
my life on the street without greeting,
breathless and ceaseless,
skimming my life without taking it in,
distracted and fractured and shallow.Be the lead in my life,
the molasses, the waist-deep snow.
Be the awkward weight, the icy walk,
the dark room with rearranged furniture
that forces me to go slow and pay attention.
Give me a weak heart, a breathing condition
that makes me pause now and then
and begin again, slowly.
Be my fine print, a foreign language
so I lean forward, listening to each word.
Be the unseen voice for which I look around,
the smell of baking bread
that makes me back up to an open door.
Be my stillness, my Sabbath, my stopping,
the Enough that it is to be here.
Even as I go, give me courage to give up,
to accomplish nothing,
to get deeply, truly nowhere at all
but here.
Photo: the pitch drop experiment, with which my girls are obsessed.
