Believer

 

I wake at four and walk outside in the dark,
in the silence of my slippers on gravel,
my blue and white housecoat.
I shoo away anything that isn’t sleeping,
which this morning is a satellite, sailing, always, out of place
among the rocketing fixity of stars.
The Big Dipper directly overhead
I line up the outside edge,
find the north star.
This is when I pray.
Nothing long or involved, nothing like Calvin
or the Russian pilgrims.
I pray, “Love us, hold us, heal us,”
add, “love me, hold me, heal me.”
And while my heart sometimes condemns me,
You do not.
You, who I abandon in the dog afternoons
and return to in the mornings,
when I know I’ll have Your attention.
Or is that perhaps mine?
Soon enough I’ll return to doubting,
confused, as many here are, by this long, strange war
of vanity and violence over truth.
Confounded even by my own perceptions,
fury and sorrow, and wondering where, or if You are.
But here, standing on these small stones by the gate
looking up,
knowing two comets are quite alive and swimming in the dark,
under my homemade fountain,
I believe: You,
who can make a sun from nothing,
who can raise a corpse,
can shine a light on what remains of the light here.
And every day
I grow more desperate and kind.

 

24 Comments

  1. I’ve stood by a similar gate in the early dark, standing in those very shadows between belief & doubt. Thank you for expressing what my heart feels today.

  2. Thanks for this reflection. May I use “Love us, hold us, heal us.” Amen” as the signature on my email? So fitting for this time in our lives.
    Don

  3. I tried to post this, complete with comment, but it wouldn’t work. So rather than wait for “them” to fix things, I will just comment here. I am usually housebound – I often wish for such personal observations and conversations with God. So today, I will lean on yours. Thank you for sharing!!

  4. Stephen, this is now one of my favorites. I sometimes too go out at 4 or 5 in the morning and stand under Orion and his companions and drink in the silence. An Ignatian friend recently said that our deepest desire is our deepest prayer. Your words have painted a picture of just that. Thank you.

  5. Every time I read your words here I am rewarded – thank you for this. Love us, hold us, heal us carries a lot of weight this morning.

  6. Steve, I think that someday some aspiring graduate student English major will write a thesis or dissertation on your theology! Yesterday in a presentation I gave, I said in answer to a question that we need a robust theology of common grace. I’m not sure where that came from – but maybe from GrowMercy. Great poem this!

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