lying here noting the fading smell of sulfur match lit the Holy Spirit candle placed at the center of the cardinal directions on the altar I erected facing east signifying Life my life a whole life is the work being wrought in me i am tapping tapping tapping out each letter painstakingly but a moment this and then gone i love this lampost to living altarspace a low lying table i culled forth for this purpose to pause to bend knee to invoke i know we don't always know where we are headed cosmic vagabonds all but the Sacred knows exactly what we need and what we need is what I pray for our souls to grow i listen so often to the song when the birds are flying low watch the thunderheads form and did you know? you can lean so far into the wind and smell the rain gather whispering drops before there is even a visible cloud in the sky i thought i was imagining it one afternoon but it was as real as any dream and so it is i like knowing there is a secret wisdom wonder gathers all about us and we are so busy looking for what we think we should see we miss it the mystery the real and glory of it all i've come to the conclusion i want to listen more prayer is so much more about my ears than my voice but then my heart has always made its pace through the day with you I'm thinking of how now it's so much summer outside and yet like on Saturday when i felt it when you are out riding with the wind sometimes you can feel a change coming long before you'll see that change along its way i swear i felt tiny moments of fall and though all about us seems contrary to that day you can't tell me it's not coming i hear it's cold in the Panhandle tonight and so it is you envelop me in Mystery i cannot possibly know in this moment what the world it has instore for me but i know you mark my journey and i embrace it to honour you grant me courage like the ready staff i once took with me everywhere the one I called my umbrella only a few knew i never meant it to keep out the rain like the power imbued in the child's sword plucked and preserved from the gutter of oblivion i promise i will never stop looking for your letters never stop listening for your voice never stop never stop being in your name do not let me settle for less than your eternal transformational quickening moment by moment by moment. yes.
[artwork from the album "fallen splendour" by jeff johnson]
