Saturday after Ash Wednesday

February 20, 2021

---

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 86, a very personal prayer. The kingdom, the nation, the people are not mentioned. It is a plea from one aching heart to its merciful God.

Each one of us has been that person on occasion. We may not have employed the exact words of Psalm 86, but we have prayed its sentiments in our own way.

For me, that prayer is grounded in two powerful verbs, intimate requests made to a God Who might otherwise seem distant in our times of trouble.

Incline and Harken

Let’s just walk and talk with our listening God today. Feel God bend near to listen. Listen in return.

---

Poetry: Listen, can you hear it? by Rabindranath Tagore

Listen, can you hear it?
God’s bamboo flute speaks
the pure language of love.
The moon enlightens the trees,
the path, the sinuous River.

Oblivious of the jasmine's scent
I stagger around,
disheveled heart bereft of modesty,
eyes wet with angst and delight.

Tell me, dear friend, say it aloud:
is God not my own Dark Lord?
Is it not my name God’s flute pours
into the empty evening?

For eons I longed for God,
I yearned to know the Holy One.
That's why God has come to me now,
deep emerald Lord of my breath.

O Lord, whenever your faraway flute thrills
through the dark, I say your name,
only your name, and will my body to dissolve
in your luminous River.

Hear me, Lord, in this moment.
What's stopping you?
The earth drowns in sleep.
Let's go. I'll walk with you, talk with you.

---

Music: O Lord, Hear My Prayer – Taize