Prayer

Be brave

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Inside, your voice speaks: You know you can do it. You know you have something to say. You’ve dedicated years of time, talent, and treasure to this, and seen the ripple effects as others receive the gifts. Yes, there is that fine line that you walk between true humility and feeling…joyful and proud to share your poetry…that it is even yours to give. You know the excitement you feel when you get out there, that freaky, wonderful, guerrilla prickling under your skin feeling as you imagine someone finding something you left behind. You know it’s a good thing.  Be brave. 

So I do it. I am brave. I install my “Pop-up” poems in a lavish sprinkling all over the woods. I watch from a distance. I wonder is it good enough, will it touch someone, will someone find it and like it, will someone say something, or will it all remain a mystery to me of what happens next?

Last day at the retreat, one of my new circle of creative sisters says to the gathered group: “so what I want to remember most of all is this…how magical it felt to find this little poem bit in the woods, and so I’m writing it here on my expressive art piece, so I never forget that feeling, and my prayer captured in those beautiful words.”

“Fill me with God scent, Spirit favour, something good.”

Yes, God, yes, yes.

Be of good courage. Be brave.

LAE

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Poems, like prayer flags

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This week I was reminded that not all is good, and not all is good for me. I want to un-see what I saw, erase forever the images that popped up on my computer screen immediately after an opera video I was watching on Youtube. No warning, and there it was, cruel, shocking, and cutting through my soul like a knife. I didn’t know what to do. I gasped. I turned it off. But my mind played the images over and over again. I was hooked into darkness for a time.

And then, serendipitously and providentially, I was invited into a soul healing activity that is beginning to help me forget what I saw, not that I saw it, but take the edge of pain of it away.

A friend invited me to join a social media love challenge, posting only good messages. I’ve always tried to be that kind of person, but this week I’m being more intentional.

And then yesterday, as I sat alone on my porch on Canada Day and began to feel a little sad about that, I read this,

…become more conscious of the ways everyday acts and objects are inherently sacred when performed and regarded with intention. When we focus on whatever we are doing, we discover that God is in the midst of our work.

The Artist’s Rule, by Christine Valters Paintner

And then, maybe because of my soul pain and somewhat forced solitude, my heart turned to the thought of hanging up some poems, like little flags, like little prayers, and joining others in their space of being, for a time. Silently walking in their midst and offering my small blessings to them all. So I went, and I pinned PUP around the busy and quiet spaces, and I felt new life welling up in me. I didn’t feel so alone. I didn’t feel so dark and cut off. I performed a sacred act, just as the person who finds a poem will perform the sacred act of reading.

And I thank you God for showing me another way of you in the midst, of everything.

Rotary Centre, Kelowna

Rotary Centre, Kelowna

Detail or panorama…it’s all great

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DSC_0005Last night I had the privilege of joining a group of next gen. 20 somethings at Trinity Mosaic as they gathered to focus on things with spiritual meaning. I’ve been with them before… seems it just gets better.

In their creatively expressive liturgy (think old school church with candles and rows of chairs and hand washing and crosses and response prayers, instead of their usual contemporary way of doing things)… into that atmosphere of praying and singing (the old hymns I haven’t sung since I was little, like How Great Thou Art), I gave up some poetry. I went to poetize alongside the band, and I came home with something more.

Anyway, as is usually the case, I go into most things with my intent and purpose all clearly outlined, my lines polished and practiced and then something happens. Something bigger moves: a dart of truth finds its prickly way inside me. I nod my head, search for a pen to write down what I think my (soul) just heard. What was it? I come away with words, a phrase, a little gift thought.

Not every time. But most times. Mostly when I hesitate in saying yes to the ask is precisely when something waits for me at the end of my whatever it was I was withholding in the beginning. Hmmm… interesting that. Doesn’t seem to matter if you are looking at the horizon or down at your feet… his great can capture when you least expect.

Awakening to a small gift of great,

Lesley-Anne

p.s. rumour has it that you will soon be able to experience last night’s collaborative spiritual expression in a number of ways, so please stand by…