Relinquish the Words

You may be walking into a forest

and smelling everything -

the cones crushed underfoot,

the sap rising.

You may be navigating stones

on the shore of countless waves.

You may be learning to re-love

your own heart again

and making time for a line of birds

on the mid-point of the horizon.

You may be wondering whatever 

happened to the grace of first wonder?

You may be checking yourself

for holes in your pockets.

But your body is surrounded by trees and water,

your mind is bowing down

and your spirit is in tune with all wings.

You may be wondering what you are doing

here after all these years?

You may be pausing to observe the hour.

Waves thrust your toes deep into sand

and you stumble upon the sky speaking

your language.

You are being birthed upon yourself

and learning to relinquish the words

for the meaning,

while feathers drift out of the sun

and settle at your feet.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Aaron Burden Unsplash

A Psalm of Noticing

Lord you are the author of the green leaf
and the turning of its colour.

You lay me down in the grasses
to take in the zest of the earth.

Contemplation is among us now
in the living of quiet things.

The brilliant shiny blue shell of a beetle
with contrasting orange body, whirs out of confinement.

Lord, you are my teacher from creation
leading me on paths worn well.

You also invite me on the upward ways
not many are inclined to take.

Noticing the blessings I see in nature
trains me to become more aware within.

Not everything has beauty, but once you touch
these things with your hands, it all gains perspective.

Lord, you are my abiding Person of mystery
and my greatest friend of all description.

You are always a place to come home to
and at the same time, my pilgrim adventure.

Amen.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Micah Hallahan Unsplash

Silence Beckons to Us First Thing

Silence beckons to us first thing,
ascending in the pre-dawn mist
on the call of animals
that can sense day is coming.

We wait until we feel the invitation
to approach first light
with the prayers we have kept for the earth.

We drift each benediction into sky,
out of reach of gravity.

Our prayers spread out over the
circumnavigating planet
and enfold the people waiting
for answers from the firmament.

Our prayers swirl out of the Milky Way
and head on through stars into heavenly realms,
as incense carried through angel's feathers
and inhaled into God's very nostrils.

Each star pales and then we cannot see the stars
anymore, but that doesn't mean they are not there.

We come upon the sun as our planet turns
by degree into the movements of a day.

The moon hugs the earth with swivelled bliss,
and lingers over the horizon.

Our souls reach far beyond the confines of our bodies
into the places banquet feasts are thrown
for the ones that have gone ahead.

Spirit mentions each of us by name
in a language meant for the time
Babel crumbles into dust and we are able
to look at each other, and finally understand.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Fernando Pereira Unsplash

We Have Found a Good Home

Our hands lay palms upon knees
and we have rested.

Breath upon breath
and we have listened.

Hope leads to greater hope
and we have moved quietly.

It all comes to us gradually
that we belong.

We have searched
until we realise we are found.

We knock
and the door opens wide.

We have stopped looking
for meaning elsewhere.

We have found a good home
here.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Arno Smit

Stories of Trees

birch, elm, maple

trees have grown

across the continents of my life

eucalyptus, cedar, pine

transplanted sometimes

into new gardens

oak, poplar, succulent

resin oozes as
rings in the trunk tell time

wild cherry, mulberry, plum

roots silently delve,

while some trees die

weeping willow

many leaves in colder climes
turn colour and fall

but our deciduous branches

start to bud mid-winter

jacaranda, avocado, yellowwood 

and there are always saplings

in the undergrowth

Jenneth Graser

Photography Rob Mulally Unsplash

A Psalm of Holy Invitation

Lord you are my refuge of long ages past.
I run into your strength.

Only you are the one who is able
to search me out for enemies within.

You blow through the rooms of my inward home,
as I open the windows for your Spirit
to see me in my entirety.

You rout out my inner darkness.
You expose my foes and reveal each scheme.

You are able to bring my turmoil
into peace that goes beyond all my striving efforts
to achieve peace.

It is only in your righteousness that I can rest.
I will offer the gifts of my gratitude.

I will sing over the last touches of night
that are broken with the first bird's kiss.

I will sing over the morning thanks
that rises with the sun from my back
and warms my every inclination into praise.

Your holiness is an invitation
and the pure in heart will see God.

When you ripped the curtain of deep separation,
you cleansed my heart at once.

I will see your face everywhere,
when I look.

Amen.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Natalie Collins Unsplash

Where Hearts Make Gardens

You have said, Let not haste be upon you
for I've gone ahead and I've got your back.

It is the herald who will run
with the revelation.

Waiting
will make room for living.

Longing
will make room for belonging.

There has been only a whisper of wisdom
to go on.

But a whisper is what called Elijah
to the mouth of the cave.

And each breath is what carries us
from day to day.

We will not wait for the eventuality of Heaven
or for all of our dreams to come true,
only to lose sight of the door.

Because Heaven has already been planted
where hearts make gardens.

And all it takes is for us to turn the key
and we're there.

Jenneth Graser

Photography by Benjamin Combs Unsplash

A Psalm of Mercy Relentless

Your mercy spreads like waves
relentless over the faintness of my soul.

How long, Oh Lord, is the question
that rises from deep within.

Because it is only while I am alive
that I can be the expression of
your love and light into the world.

Deliver me by the mercy that keeps on
coming.
Deliver me, by your mercy that alone
can save.

I receive no comfort from my futile efforts.
I cannot continue in groaning or tears.

All evil, flee, all darkness go!
For you, Oh Lord have risen upon me
and you have heard my every cry.

You receive and hear the prayers
I offer.

All darkness will turn back and return
to the place from which it comes.
It will turn back from the threshold of the door.

Your mercy will comfort me.
Your acceptance will soothe and re-create
my soul.

Your discipline will not consume me for
I am the Father's pleasure
and you have borne me into true delight.

Your enjoyment is upon me with
the soakings of mercy, filling, my every
broken place with your love.

Amen.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Frank Park Unsplash

What It Is to Be Seen

It is not a simple matter of arriving,
but of listening into the times we have been given.

We have scrambled for truth between the lines
and those who have aged through selfless acts of kindness
are hidden in the cracks of the world.

It is all in the eyes, he said.
The eyes we have dared to face with our eyes,
until we know what it is to be seen.

Seen with the fire that blazed the suns into being
and the love that causes knees to fold
and the power that causes rocks to weep

and we have felt the tears well up from
within the places no words are spoken

and the spirit has a voice most clear

and all of the things that have fallen down
or away, pale before these ruptures of light,

because we are made from such love, to be loved.
Yes, we are made from such love, to be love.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Julia Caesar Unsplash

It Is Not So Hard to Go Within After All

It is not so hard to go within after all.

Open the gate of my garden home,

breathe on top of the morning chill, a song.

I feel you urge me towards the sanctuary.

It is more thorough than before, 

when I was so busy searching for what is lost.

The windows frame what is so familiar

and yet, it's all become a platform of the spectacular.

The shadows on the curtain were not there before

and now they are pulsing on the fabric cascade.

The jasmin that was closed in bud

is now a flush of white stars flung into the kitchen.

I was looking to move on, feel different,

get on with mid-life into whatever's next

and now I've been surprised into your face.

I've come to the grass under the knee,

I've come to the flowers in the grass

and all that lives under the grass.

I've come to the smallness of life

where your largeness is hidden.

Your face is growing with the roots

quietly interlaced and drinking

all the earth has to offer.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Aaron Burden Unsplash

When the Day Was Set to Unravel, Here You Are

The steam from the cup of tea 

has become a ministry of your presence.

When the day was set to unravel, here you are.

Rain collects across the valley in sheets 

and from my window I watch it come

into the garden from afar, blown in from the sea.

The expanse of your heart is infinitely large

in every breath waiting to be realised.

If it cannot be in the things I have wanted,

then it can be in what's in front of my eyes

waiting to be seen.

Awareness is: becoming a part 

of the miracles in the moment I am living.

Belonging in your love, opens me

to the beautiful genius of your creation

in a humble beetle folded in with the washing

crawling free.

Or a moth on the curtain, fuzzy creeping over

my fingers onto the windowsill.

I am grateful for the things that don't always

work the way I want them to.

They are teaching me into patience,

a patience that has not always been so forthcoming.

If I stop wanting so badly,

I will dip deeply into this moment and draw forth

an infinity of living waters.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Carli Keen of Unsplash

Where I Truly Belong

I wake up to the aliveness of you

You have made me a Child of your own

There isn't a moment of less than another

We are all equally Beloved.

You are not distant as I sometimes imagine

Hope is real in the embrace of your arms

When I feel tired and full of regret

You lift me higher than I've ever been.

I am coming back to first love

And to a love going deeper mature

I am coming to the door of your knocking

And opening wide for you to come in.

The music will always be singing within me

Worship to you is ingrained in my heart

You appear in disguise in my dreams of the night

I am not hidden or lost in your eyes.

You have a unique plan and purpose for our lives

We are not losing the path or the way

Because you said that your sheep know your voice

And you are the Way and the Truth and the Life.

I am coming back to awareness

Putting all else aside, getting rid of distractions

I am entering the holy of holies

And finding myself where I truly belong.

Amen.

Jenneth Graser

Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

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

The Time for Faith to Arise

I am a warrior on the winds of time.
I do not stay down when my back is covered
by the sound of a lion's roar.

A call has reached me from over the battlements of my heart,
Be still! I will fight for you!

When the pursuit intensifies with one thing after another,
I will stand up internally into strength not my own.
I will relearn what it is to do more than I am capable of.
I will overcome each fiery thought with ageless rivers of living water.

The angels are ministering very powerfully at this time
and desperate souls seek desperate measures.

A sword can only penetrate effectively when sharpened
on the words that belong to another world.

We are living in a temporary frame
and the future knows what can help us.

We will speak to ourselves with certainty.
We will not accept the lies of circumstance.
It is always time for faith to arise
and the time for faith to arise is now.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Unsplash Priscilla Du Preez

A Psalm of the Holy Graces of Life

Your ear is turned towards my voice
and deep within my inward parts,
you are listening.

Your whole intention is given
without reserve.
You have inclined yourself to
the spaces of my heart.

Your pathways are before me certain
as the moment I was born.
You have provided for the days between
my birth and death.

The evil risen up around the earth
must be told again, and we look to see it's true,
that there are more with us each time
than those that are with them.

All holy is the pearl of your words,
dripped dew from the stem of grace.
All beauty is your soul with no beginning.

You have spread yourself glory-expansive over me
and the protection of your favour
can not be removed.

All holy is your compassion
in the dirt and fallow places where we least expect to find you.
All holy is your weeping, over the losses we have faced.

No voice can match the matchless sound of yours.
All other words fall harmless to the ground.

In love I was born, in love I live, in love I will die
and wrapped in the shield of your graces, I will live again.

Amen.

Jenneth Graser

Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash

Psalm of the Night Watches

I observe the breathing of my heart
as I lie on my bed through the night watches.

In combination with the air you give,
I breathe also in other realms.

I am alive in every part of this marvellous body
you have created.

I take in every moment,
searching my heart in the silence.

What sacrifices do you desire?
It is these I offer up to you with both hands trusting.

When many voices all over the world
clamour for any amount of good,
it is the light of your face that will continue to flame.

It is a greater abundance that I will find
in my soul where you meet with me,
than in the wealth of many houses combined.

I am safe in this love and will tarry here.

My meditation becomes sleep.
My sleep becomes rest
as your dreams ripple across the face of the night.

Amen.

Jenneth Graser

This Old Body Can Still Have New Dreams

You have blessed me with your face unexpected.
Every dream I ever had pales in comparison.
This old body can still have new dreams.
Even the ones I put off, because of the voices that say no,
I am pulling out, taking a look and thinking
It's time.

The ocean pulls over the shore with benedictions
of ozone, salt-lavish froth over the toes.
Nature is always pointing me in the right direction.

When I feel as though I've come down to the last
bit of oil and the last bit of flour to bake my bread,
I'm sure you would like to remind me of a day
your Mother asked and even though it wasn't
quite the right time, it became the right time
for miracles.

I want to find myself born again full of wonder.
Everything that looks same old, same old
can become brand spanking new.
I can look at the waves the way
a child can about to jump in and be rollicked
into everything happy under the sun.

There are child-like parts that haven't heard a noise
from me, waiting to be called up into play.
And I'm willing, to be rebirthed.
I'm willing to embrace another facet of you.

Jenneth Graser