Back to the Basics

There were too many ways of trying to figure everything out.
So we succumbed to the beguiling sky.
We lay under the highness of it
and waited for the first stars.

It was going back to the basics that shifted things.
It was stopping and looking.

Let God be God, they said.
And when the weather turns upon the cloud
and the horizon thrusts forth with brazened colour
when the winds thrash the sand from the shore
and the ship does not stay true to the mark
when the harbour is too far a shelter,

then we lay down and feel the earth
beneath our hearts, growing
and we watch for the garden's secrets.

We climb into the trees
and make time for silly things
that we are always too busy to make time for.

We remember that all can change in a moment
and that we cannot hold the heavy stuff
for one more minute of the day.

God, you are God in me.  You are being God in me.
And I. I am letting it rest.
No more trying, I said that the last time.
And now I mean it.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Johannes Plenio Unsplash

We Have Launched Our Souls into the Sky

We have grown tired of searching for hope
where hope may not be found.

So we have launched our souls into the sky
burgeoning with life from where it comes.

Birds flock in bustling commotion and yet do not collide.
Working together is not so hard to come by.

We have launched our souls into the sky,
because hope originates from elsewhere.

We have taken to flight because being earthbound
is not for souls.

When we bring back what we get from your holy glorious face,
we will pour out the seeds of many flowers into the garden
where gardens wait for seeds to be sown

and then we will water and be faithful with the small things.

The small things are not so small
when you look another way.

Jenneth Graser

Photograph Bill Williams Unsplash

Humbled by Your Sovereign Ways

I worship you holder of the earth.

I seek to fill myself with the wisdom of your face.

You have humbled me by your sovereign ways.

There have been wars and unmentionables.

Job had his questions,

Yet you asked many more.

I worship you keeper of my trust.

I seek to depend not on my understanding 

By leaning into the invitations of your mystery.

You are Beloved as the day you spoke creation into being,

As the day of your birth,

Beloved as the day of your death.

I am surrounded by what is greater than any suffering,

Love that forgives what cannot be explained.

I worship you the source of all love,

Of all love, I praise.

Amen.

Jenneth Graser 

 

Space for Loving

You have always believed the best about me.
I have been cradled in faith from my birth.
Your emphasis is on what love can see.

Not on my own limitations
Or even on what I dream or envision.
When I learn to let go of what I want so badly,
My efforts drain out into your ability.

Comforter of broken passions,
Deliverer of sunken intention,
You have brought me into the space for loving.

You are weeding from me what hinders,
You sow in me what grows from faith alone.

It is better to believe and feel the blood flow through.
It is better to relinquish crusty longings.
It is better to throw off stale perspectives
To make room for what only love can do.

Jenneth Graser