Silent Prayer

The church is empty when you arrive,
and you choose a chair at random, sitting
with the light from the stained glass washing
over your face, far brighter

that your spirit, lighting the sanctuary
and even in this late day in May,
warming your skin, reaching deep
below, calling to your soul.

You have always been drawn to light,
and when you have flailed, it has been in darkness,
when alone you struggled with your brokenness,
far more aware of your own frailty

than those who saw you stand against the wind,
far more aware how, alone, we all fall,
eventually worn and rotted by the weather
of a world that cares not

for anything but it’s own cycles, it’s own
power to erode and weaken.
And so you come here, and do…….
nothing.

You simply wait, your heart open to the invisible music
of hope, of memory, of desire
for a beauty far beyond your ability to create,
and on dark days, beyond your ability

to imagine.
In the end, the lesson sinks in like the sun’s warmth,
that there is nothing you can do
that can make more difference,

nothing more important than what you are doing here,
now. Waiting, open, for a spirit beyond your own
to find it’s way into the unarmed crevices of your heart,
and heal you, so silently, so slowly

that, even your broken soul
is powerless to stop
the healing.

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The photograph was taken in the church I worship in and serve at – Rupert Methodist Church.

Tom