Pause for Prayer: SUNDAY 1/25

 

In the last couple of days, a friend posted the photo above, taken at Plum Island Beach in Newburyport, MA, and I immediately wrote asking for his permission to post it on my blog - Mike Sierra graciously said yes.  I wasn't sure when or how I'd use the photo but it's stark beauty told me I'd find a way, a reason.  Then another friend posted the reflection below and, upon request, Gregory Maguire  told me I could share it on my page.  It didn't take me too long, then, to pair the picture with the words.  I find each of them alone and both of them together to be a rich source for prayerful reflection.  I hope you do, too.  

 

"I now think of the time ahead 

as less of an ocean and more of a receding sea, 

perhaps sooner or later turning into quicksand..."

This is the day the Lord has made.

A day I might have rued.

Not a summer's day, to which 

comparison is a dicey proposition 

- almost nobody can win in that beauty pageant.

 

But as I once noticed an elderly Cambridge friend of mine 

drawing in her horizons 

- finding Norway too far away, then Manhattan, 

and then even the Harvard Faculty Club by taxi 

a bit of a campaign, so let's eat in 

- I now think of the time ahead as less of an ocean 

and more of a receding sea, 

perhaps sooner or later turning into quicksand.

 

I don't have a five year plan, 

but usually I have a five minute plan.

And sometimes do something else 

because I get distracted, like a dog on the sidewalk 

sensing something unnerving or curious. 

 

A conundrum, a holy mystery, 

this mathematical proposition:

regard and gratitude for the time to be lived in 

doesn't shrink with the portion size. 

 

Not unlike, I suppose, 

the capacity to take a new person into your love

regardless of how committed you are 

to everyone you've ever met. 

"The heart has infinite room inside it."

 

Today the volume expands to include 

a five year old boy with a backpack

and his family.

So the day is full of sorrow.

 

And yet I'm still grateful for the daylight, 

which seems obscene.

 

This is not a poem.

Just some thoughts 

as I'm in a doctor's examination room

in a holding pattern.

Waiting for therapy, relief, good news, and mercy.

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