Obedience

Sometimes prayers come out as poems.  As I make my way through my Federation Novitiate experience, I am finding that more and more poetry speaks to the deep movement within me. As a wise woman once told me, "Poetry's power is in capturing feelings. It is a mode of telling our self how we feel." And so, in this way, prayer and poetry fit perfectly together.  Poems become a mode of expressing emotion to God and discovering it anew for ourselves.  The following poems come from a two day class on the vow of obedience. May they speak to your heart & open you to the prayer already deep inside of you...

___________________

Stop.

Listen.

In the stillness

in the war torn shallows

of your heart

and hear.

Hear the whisper

that cries out

from the very cracks within

your bones,

“Be True.”

and the Truth will set you free.

Free to be bound up together

in our brokenness

to speak to the One who knows

all too well

and to learn, as if for the first time

that nothing

-not even ourselves-

can separate us from the Love of God.

___________________

Loving God, pause within me.

Long enough that I might see you there

and recognize your presence.

Pause if only for eternity and hold me still.

That I might be given to you,

All my desires,

            fears,

            faults,

            and blindness,

all that I am. Let me pause with you.

That I might be given to you

and as you move on,

I might follow you

to the ends of the Earth.