I DON'T WANT TO BE A SPICE STORE

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I don’t want to be a spice store.
I don’t want to carry handcrafted Marseille soap,
or tsampa and yak butter,
or nine thousand varieties of wine.
Half the shops here don’t open till noon
and even the bookstore’s brined in charm.
I want to be the one store that’s open all night
and has nothing but necessities.
Something to get a fire going
and something to put one out.
A place where things stay frozen
and a place where they are sweet.
I want to hold within myself the possibility
of plugging one’s ears and easing one’s eyes;
superglue for ruptures that are,
one would have thought, irreparable,
a whole bevy of non-toxic solutions
for everyday disasters. I want to wait
brightly lit and with the patience
I never had as a child
for my father to find me open
on Christmas morning in his last-ditch, lone-wolf drive
for gifts. “Light of the World” penlight,
bobblehead compass, fuzzy dice.
I want to hum just a little with my own emptiness
at 4 a.m. To have little bells above my door.
To have a door.

Christian Wiman

HOW TO LISTEN

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I’m not asking you
to come down here
and clean out the muddy
corners of my life.

I’m asking you 
to be a forest
where mud and leaves,
shadows and light,
growth and decay
all have their unquestioned
belonging.

I’m asking you 
to be an ocean,
where even great storms
don’t trouble the depths
and each tear is welcomed
as a homecoming.

I’m asking you
to be as spacious 
as the vast darkness
behind the sky,
which will never be afraid
of what I do
or don’t choose.

I’m not asking you
to hold me together.
I’m asking you
to open so wide
there’s room for all the ways
I come apart.

James A. Pearson

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

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When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

HELLO, I SAY

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Neither I nor the poets I love found the keys to the kingdom of prayer and we cannot force God to stumble over us where we sit. But I know that it’s a good idea to sit anyway. So every morning I sit, I kneel, waiting, making friends with the habit of listening, hoping that I’m being listened to.

There, I greet God in my own disorder. I say hello to my chaos, my unmade decisions, my unmade bed, my desire and my trouble. I say hello to distraction and privilege, I greet the day and I greet my beloved and bewildering Jesus.

I recognize and greet my burdens, my luck, my controlled and uncontrollable story. I greet my untold stories, my unfolding story, my unloved body, my own love, my own body. I greet the things I think will happen and I say hello to everything I do not know about the day. I greet my own small world and I hope that I can meet the bigger world that day.

I greet my story and hope that I can forget my story during the day, and hope that I can hear some stories, and greet some surprising stories during the long day ahead. I greet God, and I greet the God who is more God than the God I greet.

Hello to you all, I say, as the sun rises above the chimneys of North Belfast.

Hello.

Padraig O'Tuama

HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS

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“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Emily Dickinson

FOR THE DYING

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May death come gently toward you,
Leaving you time to make your way
Through the cold embrace of fear
To the place of inner tranquillity.

May death arrive only after a long life
To find you at home among your own
With every comfort and care you require.

May your leave-taking be gracious,
Enabling you to hold dignity
Through awkwardness and illness.

May you see the reflection
Of your life's kindness and beauty
In all the tears that fall for you.

As your eyes focus on each face,
May your soul take its imprint,
Drawing each image within
As companions for the journey.

May you find for each one you love
A different locket of jeweled words
To be worn around the heart
To warm your absence.

May someone who knows and loves
The complex village of your heart
Be there to echo you back to yourself
And create a sure word-raft
To carry you to the further shore.

May your spirit feel
The surge of true delight
When the veil of the visible
Is raised, and you glimpse again
The living faces
Of departed family and friends.

May there be some beautiful surprise
Waiting for you inside death,
Something you never knew or felt,
Which with one simple touch,

Absolves you of all loneliness and loss,
As you quicken within the embrace
For which your soul was eternally made.

May your heart be speechless
At the sight of the truth
Of all belief had hoped,
Your heart breathless
In the light and lightness
Where each and everything
Is at last its true self

Within that serene belonging
That dwells beside us
On the other side
Of what we see.

John O’Donohue

FOR CELEBRATION

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Now is the time to free the heart,
Let all intentions and worries stop,
Free the joy inside the self,
Awaken to the wonder of your life.

Open your eyes and see the friends
Whose hearts recognize your face as kin,
Those whose kindness watchful and near,
Encourages you to live everything here.

See the gifts the years have given,
Things your effort could never earn,
The health to enjoy who you want to be
And the mind to mirror mystery.

John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us

FOR A LEADER

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May you have the grace and wisdom
To act kindly, learning
To distinguish between what is
Personal and what is not.

May you be hospitable to criticism.
May you never put yourself at the center of things. 

May you act not from arrogance but out of service.

May you work on yourself, 
Building up and refining the ways of your mind.

May those who work for you know
You see and respect them. 

May you learn to cultivate the art of presence 
In order engage with those who meet you. 

When someone fails or disappoints you,
May the graciousness with which you engage
Be the stairway to renewal and refinement. 

May you treasure the gifts of the mind
Through reading and creative thinking
So that you continue as a servant of the frontier
Where the new will draw its enrichment from the old,  
And you never become a functionary. 

May you know the wisdom of deep listening,
The healing of wholesome words,
The encouragement of the appreciative gaze,
The decorum of held dignity,
The springtime edge of the bleak question. 

May you have a mind that loves frontiers, 
So that you can evoke the bright fields
That lie beyond the view of the regular eye. 

May you have good friends
To mirror your blind spots. 

May leadership be for you
A true adventure of growth.

John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us