Shining Spirit

Only when a building collapses,
only when the relationship crumbles into ruin,
only when the city street disappears into a vicious sinkhole,
only when the beachfront house slides down the embankment,
only then do we wonder about foundations.
When all goes well, and everything looks fine,
appearances are counted as successes,
and facade passes for substance,
then we feel good about
the moment, the meaning, the mission.
Foundations are forgotten.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Invisible until the inferno
redefines reality.

What we don’t remember, or
never knew, or have lost concern about
is that foundations are
structural imperatives.
They are purposeful,
often laid by unknown hands,
often designed to support something
far prettier, more compelling,
supposedly of greater significance.

Foundation builders should get the awards.
Foundation builders are the anonymous backbone of a culture
madly in love with toys and titles.
Stability and strength are at the heart of any
reputable foundation.
And, too, in the makeup of all
who in obscurity shape the cement
and think beyond the
immediacy of now.

I used to think my prayers went out and up,
like a skyrocket or a sleek airliner at take off,
rising, lifting, faster and faster, higher and higher,
flung into space with hope and a trajectory.
right into the mind of God.

But time and experience taught me that God is
right here…in our midst, among us, incarnate and
that skyrockets create beautiful explosions that
last a few seconds and then are gone.

Now, in these years of reflection,
I watch the sun set over the ocean,
a glowing ball hovering on the horizon,
creating a display of shapes and colors that
will fade and disappear into night.
I am stirred deep within my self.
No rising to reach the remote.
No more out there.

I talk to myself.
To a deep inner place where ideas start,
dreams are born, a fertile place. Holy
only because life’s essence resides there,
catching falling skyrockets ad planning
tomorrow’s sunset.

I am not God and God is not me,
yet there exists within me a
mysterious merging of up and down,
in, out, here, there and a final clarity
reached only through the interior
landscape of human wonder and
sacred wisdom.

I no longer throw my prayers into a
remote heaven. I plant them in the
soil of my soul where each is tended
by the One whose wisdom is greater
than mine, whose love extends beyond
the boundaries that I have set, whose
forgiveness far exceeds my limitations.

The garden of my soul, a place where
prayers are planted and nurtured
in trust and hope.