Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time

September 25, 2020

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Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 90 and the hopeful refrain:

Fill us at daybreak with your kindness,
that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.

For today, I am just going to stay with that verse and with this song that I love. I hope you find it as beautiful as I do.

Poetry: a prose poem I wrote a few years ago:

Each morning, every soul is called 
out of sleep into life, out of darkness into dawn.  
As surely as the flower is kissed by the sun, 
as gently as grass is refreshed by the rain, 
the sparrow is called from its nest; 
the fox from its hollow. 

From the Oriental Sunrise, all across the nations, 
the curtain is drawn back in revelation. 
Every country is slowly illuminated  
– across its seas and deserts, 
plains and mountains, 
wars and peace. 

Across your own soul, 
all your personal geographies awaken, 
lit one by one with the awareness of life. 

Each person whose breath has crossed your life 
– be they lover, friend, sister, 
or the shadow of a stranger 
momentarily passing on a distant afternoon 
– each one, this morning, will be struck like a candle 
by the Morning Spark, by the kindling of God. 
Will they catch fire with their lives? Will you?

We are ignited by God 
to live God’s sacred life in our time. 
We will each unfurl in a vital flame 
or smolder in the embers of our unawareness. 
From the depths of our poverty 
or the shallowness of our wealth, 
it makes no difference. 
It is the same Light. 
We will all be touched. 

What differs are the shadows 
each of us has wrapped about our hearts, 
those deceptive veils where we hide 
from the mercifully incisive brilliance of God. 

What veil might I lay aside today? 
Distraction, worry, vengeance, resentment, 
self-importance, laziness, 
a failure of intention in my choices, 
the enslavement of a toxic relationship?  

At this moment in time, what unveiling 
will allow me to embrace God’s amazing gift of life?

Will I look fully into God’s bright eyes today 
by facing my own heart? 
Will I let God look back at me 
through the hearts of those 
with whom I share this sunrise?