Shepherd

A reflection on Easter Sunday

He knows His own
And speaks to us -- comprehensibly --
And gives us life abundant,
Free from predation,
From starvation,
From despair, disdain, disgrace.

His beauty is mine in truth;
Mine because I see it,
Mine because I own it
And wear it
And swim in it
And do not drown in it
Only because divine breath
Abides within my lungs,
On my forehead
And in my soul.

Another Scary Prayer

Here's another one that a prudent person ought to think twice before praying. I'm not necessarily very prudent, but I did think twice about it. Then I prayed it anyway.

We don't know what we need
Until we don't have it --
And sometimes not even then.

O Lord, smite me with my need.
Level me with it,
Lay me low
Before the blast of Your refining furnace.

Make my need
Loud and ugly and vile,
Easy to hate,
Easy to leave behind
As I dive into
The bottomless refreshing blue
Of Your all-sufficient
Grace.

Be Careful How You Pray...

Editor's Note: Knowing what I do now about how my summer went, I remember the wry old adage, "Be careful what you pray for." I prayed to share in the suffering of Christ, and I certainly experienced that in July - September 2019. And I wouldn't do a thing differently. Thanks be to God for His constant care and the growth He gives His children!

O heavenly Man,
Remake me in Your image.
Let me share in Your life,
Your death, Your suffering,
But most of all
Your obedience.
Kill my flesh
And bring me deeper, truer life:
Not inspired or powered by me,
But always, only You.

I want to share with you:
Your holiness
Your love,
Your service,
Your suffering.

My Introduction to Walker Percy

I didn't know much about Walker Percy until I read The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage, Paul Elie's excellent literary biography of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Percy, and Flannery O'Connor. I picked it up because I've been on an O'Connor kick for the past couple of years and I'd heard good things about Elie's handling of her work.

After reading Elie's book, I find myself eager to see more from Day, Merton, and Percy... but especially Percy. I found a sort of kinship with him, and I suspect that his work will help me understand myself better. For instance, this excerpt from p. 78 of Elie sounds exactly like something I'd do:

So I have Day and Merton on my mental backburner, but Percy has elbowed his way toward the front. I'll start with The Moviegoer (which I fortuitously found at a book sale last week), and then toward The Thanatos Syndrome and perhaps The Second Coming.

It's always fun to discover a kindred spirit, even one who died when I was nine. :-D

Programmer Hands

My wife's hands have callouses on callouses.
I, on the other hand (both hands, in fact) do not.
When the children are in bed and the lights are out
And we lie in tangled sheets
Our limbs and fingers and hearts intertwined,
Breathing deep, satisfied breaths,
She teases me about the softness of my skin.
"I have programmer hands," I say, and find
Some other pleasant occupation for my hands.
(She does not complain of their softness then.)

Nonetheless, it is true: I have the hands of a programmer.
They don't get much exposure to the elements.
They don't carry heavy things all that often.
They don't change many diapers these days.
They are hesitant in the morning, tapping
Like a woodpecker who knows bugs are in this tree,
Somewhere or another -- they just need to be found.
My fingers tread forward, then back, then retrace their steps again,
Feeling for the trail like blind cross-country runners.
By the end of the day, they're slow but steady,
A tortoise who has finally hit his stride,
Coating the napping hare in sedately trodden dust.

All day long, my hands reflect my mind.
They are sluggish when it is slow,
Inspired when it is brilliant, and they make
Predictable dumb mistakes every so often,
Like the comforting ticking of a clock.
(I'd hate to stop making these mistakes,
Since then I'd feel utterly out of place.)

My hands work to embody my thoughts
In symbols on the screen. Through occult magic,
These symbols will compile into electromagnetic artifacts
That will help a balding pharmacist to fill prescriptions
In a warehouse a thousand miles away.
Like the miller's daughter, I weave the straw of thought-stuff
Into the pure gold of my boss's bottom line.
My fingers are the spinning wheel,
And my Rumpelstiltskin's true name is C++.