Welcome Letter: The Land Of The Living

Finding the goodness of God while I'm still alive

Welcome! Here is a place where you’ll find me. I write to be able to live in the present. Most of the time I’m looking for grace in expected and unexpected places. I’m learning to “care and not to care. To be still, even among these rocks, our peace in His will…” as T.S. Eliot puts it in his searing and endearing poem, Ash Wednesday. This is a place where I can collect beauty - poetry, books, music, movies, and themes of grace from the stories of the world. This is also a place where I work out my faith and theology. I’ll be doing less short-form “instagram writing” and more over here.

I’ll be writing on average, twice a month. Maybe more. Maybe less. I’m not looking for this to become any sort of achievement or performance. What is grace to me is also grace for you.

So, to start us off, here is a poem I wrote the other day. I was trying to find words about my first spiritual direction retreat. A program I began in January. Coming back above water to every-day life has been choppy. Integration is not for the faint of heart.

Wherever you find yourself today, may you find signs of the goodness of God in the land of the living.

I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. (Ps. 27:13)

We flew in with the wind

and settled atop a soil prepared.

Once scattered by the wind

our shells broke

and fell into the softness of the soil. 

The prayers of saints

tilling, turning and preparing

making room

for 30 broken seeds to take root.

Don't underestimate the work of monks 

preparing room for you and me 

to fly in with the wind.

The wind of the Spirit blows where it will

we collide

looking for the goodness of God

in the land of the living. 

This one thing I did find

no two.

A beloved relationship.

Trinity. 

An ever flowing abundance,

pouring over us.

Third, a death.

Naked without my shell. 

And fourth, soft and green and new,

tender shoots

from the Vine.

In the land of the living. 

Image by Vincent Van Gogh. The Red Vineyard.

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