don’t try too hard
God just likes making things.
He doesn’t try too hard. Comfortable.
No particular message in mind –
Bugs,
Flowers,
Birds,
Stones,
Trees,
those beauties with leaves and sap.
Shells of all sorts,
revealing the sound of the ocean –
even in the middle of the desert.
He never runs out of fresh ideas,
new angles,
dazzling variations of old themes.
He makes masterpieces,
out of scavenged and wasted things.
Beauty within ashes and scars.
Gardens and vegetables from rotted orange rinds and other scraps.
Jewels from lumps of coal.
Our creativity, at least in part,
comes from resting in,
spending time with,
opening from within.
Prayer as emptiness.
Prayer as silence.
Prayer as stillness.
Prayer as rest.
Prayer as opening.
Prayer without wanting or asking.
Prayer as presence.
Then,
sometimes,
God,
the muse,
shows up,
hangs out on the sofa,
and our hearts begin to sing,
and we simply just can’t help making things ourselves…
💞
AL
(based on the book: the holy wild by Mark Buchanan)
After the glut of sparkle and sentiment,
all that heavy gold and glory,
it’s kind of a relief to return
to an orderly house, a clean mantle,
a blue and white shirt, the regular dishes.
The world is plain, snow is crusted,
trees more bare than in November.
The marsh like the underside of a carpet,
the cattails bland and spent.
The asphalt road has nothing to say,
the gray sky shrugs and says, “Ditto.”
God stands there,
hands in the pockets of a drab jacket,
gazing at the brook’s blank of ice,
says, “Yeah, I like to hang out here.
It’s relaxing. Clears my head.”
I come home to a quiet house,
refrigerator humming. This too is holy.
I sit on the couch, gaze out at the yard.
“Huh,” I say. “What do you know?
Pockets.”
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
life: acoustic & amplified 