here…locate!

the trout run is early this year.

the taste of autumn in the air.

all too beautiful for words.

but words will have to do, as long as we leave enough space in between them for the air to speak.

the Ganaraska River is filled with trout swimming upstream, making their way from Lake Ontario, up through town, over the rocks, past the fisherman.  impasse after impasse, there’s no stopping them.

come on they say,

come,

get to the task.

the way is straight and narrow.

come:

find infinity

^^^^^^^^

i love this poem by Godfrey John:

Locate!

(Isaiah 54:2; Judges 18:10)

Where?

Here!

Friend, look close:

beneath your feet

is holy ground.

Under all questions

the heart longs

for a people, a place

in the morning light.

Where?

Here!

Look again:

place is community,

is one

whatever lies bright

in each of us.

Now under your hand

a purpose springs.

For place is prayer

in the wilderness.

As you walk the wastes

anywhere,

Love wills in you a sweet land . . .

let love go out of you left and right;

let each secret prayer embrace

the people in you, the desolate.

Place is the practice:

here locate!

*Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes…Isaiah 54:2

*When ye go, ye shall come unto a people secure, and to a large land: for God hath given it into your hands; a place where there is no want of any thing that is in the earth. Judges 18:10

what in this day…

what today is heralding the holy?

what is calling out to you in the midst?

right where there are walls, wonderings, hosts of unanswered questions

what is waiting to emerge, be revealed, discovered, glimpsed, gleaned?

wilderness moments are ripe with offerings,

not the wastelands we perceive them to be

fruitful pause before spring

when all is quiet

poignant with promise

gracious unfurling

for Moses it was a burning bush, a voice to waken

the ground was holy

he had to stand on it with both feet

“Think of this, dear reader, for it will lift the sackcloth from your eyes, and you will behold the soft-winged dove descending upon you. The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares. Then thought gently whispers: ‘Come hither!'” Mary Baker Eddy from Science and Health

“Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” Rumi

“All day
on their airy backbones
they toss in the wind,

they bend as though it was natural and godly to bend,
they rise in a stiff sweetness,
in the pure peace of giving
one’s gold away.” from Goldenrod by Mary Oliver

“Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; ands the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.” Psalms 141:2