for all the saints.

"Sing with all the saints in glory, sing the resurrection song!
Death and sorrow, earth's dark story, to the former days belong.
All around the clouds are breaking,  soon the storms of time shall cease;
in God's likeness we, awaking, know the everlasting peace...
Life eternal! heaven rejoices; Jesus lives, who once was dead.
Join we now the deathless voices; child of God, lift up your head...

Life eternal! O what wonders crowd on faith; what joy unknown,
when, amidst earth's closing thunders, saints shall stand before the throne!"

-Sing with All the Saints in Glory by Willian J. Irons


a blessing for all saints.

May we gather up the treasures
scattered by those who
walked and worked before us.
May the depth of our grief reveal within it
the abundant gifts of memory and love.
May the darkness where we now linger
become the place where light finds and claims us.
May the shadowy windings
of these cavernous tombs
lead ever into resurrection.
May we draw near to the ones
who carved the paths we now walk
and celebrate their resurrection stories.
And may we too be resurrected
to become today's saints 
continuing the blessed work
of renewing and remaking the world.

the gift of years.

a poem for my 35th birthday

The gift of years.

Thirty-five journeys round the sun
on this beautiful spinning globe
of budding earth and swirling sea.
I have been, with you,
a part of the eternal dance
in this vast expanse
of unknown universes.

Here, on our little patch
of known time and space
each day is small, but holy
as we breathe together
this miracle of air,
and stare up together
at the impossibly wide
canvas of sky.

In my numbered days
I have felt deeply;
I have been swept up
in peels of laughter.
I have wept and pleaded and howled
with both delight and sorrow.
I’ve had my heart shattered,
and pieced the shards back together
again and again,
in the constant making
that is being alive.
Each year, each week, each moment,
we fumble to arrange the fragments
into something more beautiful
and somehow more whole.

This mosaic,
tenderly assembled
in the breaking and re-making,
is the lavish gift of years.

to be born.

For Gabriel

Your life until now
Has been all warmth and shadow,
As you float to the music
of distant muffled voices, and dance
to the rhythms of heart and breath.
You know nothing but the comfort
Of this perfect blanket of dark.
This cocoon of water and flesh
Is the only world you have known,
And it has been entirely beautiful.

When your world cracks open,
It will feel immense and terrifying.
All will seem too loud, too bright,
Too much to be grasped.
This life as you know it now
Will be over in an instant
As you slip from the only
place you have ever known,
Haunted by the terrible truth
already inscribed on your bones:
you will never be able to return here
to the ground of your making.

But, my darling, there is so much
Beauty on the other side:
Wonder upon wonder
You could never have dreamed of.
There is touch, light, sound,
Color, creativity, texture, hope,
And love, love, glorious love.

I wish I could tell you it will be easy,
That you will be safe as you
Step into the wide terrain of this world;
But there are too many sharp edges
And, tender as we are,
No one walks through unscathed.

What I can promise is you won't face
This looming future alone.
Arms are waiting to hold you.
Lips are longing to greet you with a kiss.
Eyes are yearning to behold you.
Hearts are flung wide open
Ready to adore you.

I suppose what I want to say is this:
It's okay to be scared,
It's okay to cry out in
Surprise and doubt and even terror.
Weep a thousand tears if you must,
As you face the unfamiliar landscape
Of a future you never would have chosen;
And grieve the great loss of what
You must leave behind.

But come anyway.
For your one wild, wondrous life
Is waiting for you;
And you are the only one capable of living it.
You already have all you need.
So even when you feel small
Be brave.
When you feel ready to turn back
Look ahead.
When you think all is lost
Trust the miracle of the next moment
And the next as they keep
tumbling toward you.
Greet them as the unwarranted
miracles that they are.

You were made for the adventure
Of all that is to to come.
You were made for this world
As stunning and frightening
And sharp-edged as it is.
Oh My Love,
You were made
to be born.