A Prayer of Thanks
“This is the day the Lord has made; [I] will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 NKJV).
I turn my attention toward You, Lord.
I listen for You. I wait for You.
I meditate on the beauty You have brought into my life.
I think of creekbanks when I was a kid,
Boughs lilting overhead, bobbing leaves and dappled light.
The splash, the instant chill of my feet in the water.
When I was young, I went there to play.
But as a grew, I went to that sacred place to meet with You.
I always knew You were there in the muddy pools and rocks
Of the everyday and the places we play.
The places we go get away.
(Thank you for that grace.)
You met me among toads and lizards
And decaying leaves that offer up a holy incense of life-from-death.
You were always Full Circle.
Wholeness.
Always present in all things,
In the decomposition of the old and the new sprout rising out of it–
And all of it beautiful. The blossom inseparable from the breakdown
of fallen things time-transformed into rich earth.
The wild purple phlox rivaled for splendor by pale roots
Entangled with pillbugs and moss.
I find my place there among your creatures
(even though I cannot now run to the woods.)
I accept my place in your dynamism,
For a rare moment, thankful for myself–
a self who got to be alive in Your world for just a moment
to see You in rough bark and the white tails of deer.
(They huffed when they saw me, and bounded lithely over the hill.)
What can I think of heaven–
what can I say about Eternal Life?
My heart is not proud, Lord,
My eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.
(Psalm 131:1-2 ESV)
O Impulse of Life, never dormant,
always making and remaking,
Resurrecting and laying to rest,
I am carried by Your profuse energy,
And take comfort in the constancy of Your motion.
“Blessed is the one . . . whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither–
whatever they do prospers. (Psalm 1:1a, 2-3 NIV)
The Lyrical Realist 