Dear ones, In the wake of this historic election my understanding of our world and our companions who walk upon it has quaked on its fault lines. For me, comfort lies in affirming what I believe in and asking my self am I being faithful? These poems, and the link to Rev. Peter Morale’s reflection helped me. I encourage you to reach for what it is you are holding on to- and share with each other your affirming lights. With love and care- Elaine
On Prayer
You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word ‘is’
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.
– Czeslaw Milosz
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow,
Whose foam returns over and over to the same shape,
But the sinuous tenacity of a tree:
Finding the light newly blocked on one side,
It turns in another.
A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs
All this resinous, unretractable earth.
– Jane Hirshfield