Go

This morning your age fell from your bones.
The wrinkles around your eyes,
deep and prominent did not matter
as you danced in the bathroom

to music inside your head,
traveling music, it’s beat joyful
and unrelenting,
a magical hymn of change

with eternal consequences, change
inevitable and embraced,
with images of the far away lands
bright with color and threats.

Your feet are light on the stairs
as you leave the warmth of your room
and walk to the heavy oak door,
one of the many shields

that have protected you through the night,
allowing you to rest safe, preparing you
for the day’s journey, for your walk
into the unknown of promise and peril,

where the winds around you whisper
power and strength like a lover’s caress,
endearing and empowering,
reminding you that the journey ahead

is not a fearful retreat
or a charge into battle,
but something more intimate –
a return.

About this Poem

Today’s Lenten poem is on the word “Go”. There are so many ways to take that one word in the Lenten sense, but my mind kept going back o the book of Mark, which one of my teachers in seminary used to call the “go-go gospel” because Jesus is constantly on the move in Mark. Why the constant going? And where, if life is a journey, is the constant going in our own lives headed?

At it’s best, I think, that journey is taking us back to God’s arms. At it’s heart, that is the story of the bible, I think, that God is always drawing us to to his arms. But getting there almost always requires traveling. Going. Moving from where we are to a new, better place. We don’t travel alone, but often that first step is one we have to take alone.

But once we embrace that step, that going, that journey…. we find God under us an in us and in our lives in a way that makes the journey an adventure, one where while we don’t know the twists and turns, we DO know the ending.

The picture was taken in Venice.

Tom

About these Lenten Poems

My friend Cathy Benson is on to something. Instead of doing without for Lent, she is doing MORE with a prayer project that is thoughtful and caring.

Giving up something for Lent is a church tradition, not a biblical command. It was designed to get our minds and hearts right as we approach the holy week and Easter. It’s a good spiritual discipline.

But I think a spiritual discipline of doing something more is also a powerful way to prepare our hearts for Easter. The Methodists, through their “Rethink Church” initiative have come up with a photographic way to do this (see below). I am going to add a poem with each image for the lent season to help prepare myself. Feel free to glom on to the idea, visit the blog and read, or share your thoughts and prayers.