Author Archives: MCS

Mystery, Yes

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Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

-Mary Oliver

the mystical body

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“Adoration, as it more deeply possesses us, inevitably leads on to self-offering. Charity is the live wire along which the power of God, indwelling our finite spirits, can and does act on other souls and other things, rescusing, healing, giving support and light. Such secret intercessory prayer outght to penetrate and accompany all our active work. It is the supreme expression of the spirtual life on earth. It moves from God to others through us, because we have ceased to be self-centered units, but are woven into the great fabric of praying souls, the ‘mystical body’ through which the work of Christ on earth goes on being done.”

-Evelyn Underhill

already lost

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“Lutheran theologian Craig Koester says that form an earthy perspective, evil can seem so pervasive as to be unstoppable.  And watching the evening news would seem to support that idea.  But he says that from a heavenly perspective, evil-darkness and the devil-rages on earth not because it is so powerful, but because it is so vulnerable.  Koester says that satan desperately rages on earth because he knows he has already lost.”

-Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix

disturb us

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Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

-Sir Francis Drake

come

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“The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come,”

And let the one who hears say, “Come,”

And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.”

-Revelation 22:17

The Apologist’s Evening Prayer

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Thoughts are but coins.  Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn images of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

-C.S. Lewis

if you want

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If you want,
the Virgin will come walking down the road
pregnant with the holy,
and say,
“I need shelter for the night,
please take me inside your heart,
my time is so close.”
Then, under the roof of your soul
you will witness the sublime
intimacy, the divine, the Christ
taking birth
forever,

as she grasps your hand for help,
for each of us is the midwife of God, each of us.

Yet there, under the dome of your being does creation
come into existence eternally,
through your womb, dear pilgrim—
the sacred womb in your soul,

as God grasps our arms for help;
for each of us is
His beloved servant
never far.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking
down the street pregnant
with Light and sing…

–St. John of the Cross, “If You Want” in Daniel Ladinsky Love Poems from God:

Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West