Poets & Saints

Mark 4:26–29 (NRSV)  

He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,  

and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow,  

he does not know how.  

The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.  

But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

Teach us to see, O God,  

what is already before us.

Meister Eckhart

“The soul must forget itself and all things  

and must be empty of all images.  

For where there is emptiness,  

there is room for God to work.  

Nothing is so unlike God as distraction,  

and nothing so like God  

as stillness.”

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Psalm 131:1–2 (NRSV)  

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,  

my eyes are not raised too high;  

I do not occupy myself with things  

too great and too marvelous for me.

Here I am, O God.  

I make room for you.

Julian of Norwich  

Revelations of Divine Love

“For I saw truly that God does all things, however small they may be,  

and that nothing is done by chance,  

but all by the foreseeing wisdom of God.  

I saw that God is in all things,  

and that God does all things,  

and that God is all things.

And I saw that God’s love was never absent,  

nor ever shall be,  

and that all shall be gathered and held  

in this love forever.”

Refrain  

Here I am, O God.  

I make room for you.

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Job 33:4 (NRSV)  

The spirit of God has made me,  

and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

God of breath and nearness,  

you are closer than our next inhale.

Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection  

*The Practice of the Presence of God*  

“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God: those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it; yet I do not advise you to do it from that motive; it is not pleasure which we ought to seek in this exercise; but let us do it from a principle of love, and because God would have us.

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Lamentations 3:31–33 (NRSVUE, abridged)  

For the Lord will not reject forever.  

Although he causes grief,  

he will have compassion  

according to the abundance of his steadfast love;  

for he does not willingly afflict  

or grieve anyone.

I return again and again.

Jon Kabat-Zinn  

“Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully  

in each moment to being present;  

inviting ourselves to interface  

with this moment in full awareness.  

We do this by returning again and again  

to the anchor of the breath,  

no matter how many times the mind wanders.”

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Psalm 23:4 (NRSVUE)  

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,  

I fear no evil;  

for you are with me;  

your rod and your staff—  

they comfort me.

I stay with what is.

Pema Chödrön, from *When Things Fall Apart*  

“To stay present with pain and not run away from it  

is the key to awakening.  

When we stop struggling against what we feel,  

we begin to find freedom  

right where we are.”

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1 Corinthians 6:19 (NRSVUE, abridged)  

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you,  

which you have from God…  

and that you are not your own?

God meets me in my body.

Bessel van der Kolk

“The body keeps the score:  

if the memory of trauma is encoded in the viscera,  

in heartbreaking and gut-wrenching sensations,  

in autoimmune disorders and skeletal and muscular problems,  

then talking about it may not be enough.  

The body must feel safe again.”

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Psalm 46:10 (NRSVUE)  

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

I notice without fixing.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, from *Wherever You Go, There You Are*  

“Mindfulness is about being fully awake in our lives.  

It is about perceiving the exquisite vividness  

of each moment.  

We also gain immediate access  

to our own powerful inner resources  

for insight, transformation,  

and healing.”

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Genesis 2:7 (NRSVUE)  

Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,  

and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;  

and the man became a living being.

I return to the breath.

George Herbert

“Teach me, my God and King,  

In all things Thee to see;  

And what I do in anything,  

To do it as for Thee.  

A servant with this clause  

Makes drudgery divine.”

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Matthew 2:12 (NRSVUE)  

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,  

they left for their own country  

by another road.

I walk by the light I have been given.

Teresa of Ávila  

“Let nothing disturb you,  

Let nothing frighten you,  

All things are passing away:  

God never changes.  

Patience obtains all things.  

Whoever has God lacks nothing;  

God alone suffices.”

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Psalm 139:1–5 (NRSVUE, abridged)  

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.  

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;  

you discern my thoughts from far away.  

You search out my path and my lying down,  

and are acquainted with all my ways.  

Even before a word is on my tongue,  

O Lord, you know it completely.

I am seen and known by God.

George Herbert

“Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,  

Guilty of dust and sin.  

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack  

From my first entrance in,  

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,  

If I lacked anything.”

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