The Garden Of My Soul

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.