A friend who talks to God

 

I have a friend who talks to God. Literally, audibly, lifts his head and speaks into the air, prays devoutly, believes it makes all the difference.

Prayer, like art, he says, is formed through friction. It’s a hard yearning, he says, a beggar scanning for home on some opposite shore, a traveler’s recurring dream of an aerial bridge.

We sat, once, in one of his praying spots, an abandoned rowboat, beached and battered.

We smoked Maduros and watched the ebbing evening tide empty the estuary.

In time he turned and said with all tenderness (not a question), what use is your poetry if it fails to meet the cries of war-torn mothers, dying children.

I had been watching a Blue Heron, standing, as though, alone and silent in her own small room, a figure of truth, a flagpole bearing singular loyalty to the stillness of the present moment — and I was undone.

Then he said, by way of comfort and guidance, watch the gulls move through the sea haze, see how they balance sight and instinct — follow that with the nib of your pen.

That is how I pray. I come to this boat and sit, the soles of my feet through the holes in the hull, on shale and shells, and I breathe

to match the tide, slow as the estuary. And the prayer comes as groaning, spears my own heart, then turns, and I follow its grace and compassion into the burning world.

 

21 Comments

  1. All I know Stephen is that we all need your words. They take us to places we can’t get to by ourselves sometimes. They help me sit in that rowboat alongside you. And my favorite line is “I breathe to match the tide” and just being with those words calms me and my own agitated breath. Thank you.

  2. Oh my! I loved this on so many levels. I have the perfect Heron photo that came to mind with “a figure of truth, a flagpole bearing singular loyalty to the stillness of the present moment…”

  3. … of what use is your poetry… or your prayer…
    I know of a young husband, who has left a young wife and has gone to Kiev – into the burning world. I fear for him, and her, and anger for the reason he has decided to go

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *