I catch myself looking to follow others... hoping that the exact blueprint will show me step number one, then step number two. Somehow they have figured out how to do it right. I do this even when I know I would do something different anyway, or at least redefine it. I remember my daughter, when she was five, being concerned about all the people who prayed to Mary. Don*t they know they can go directly to Jesus? she asked. We must tell them. Still... we have this wonderful calendar of saints, and the ways they followed Jesus. We have saints for a reason. They give us examples of people who were more fully themselves, the way God intended. They show us the boots we are to fill... are our own. Today, here, for me, it involves the sparrows.
It seemed Francis redefined
What the Church could be.
There are books after books
On the Church that re-emerged
When he heard and lived and sang
The Gospel,
Stripped naked in the square,
Preached to birds,
Even rescued worms
So they wouldn*t be stepped on.
I have waited for a Saint
To come,
Make big Yeti footprints
In the Himalayan mud;
Me, the small child
Wearing Daddy*s boots,
Could slip and trip
After him or her.
Today the sparrows
Nested In the light on the back of the house
Might be ready to fly.
The sparrows in the vent
On the side of the house
May have flown
Already.
All the sparrows knew
we had too much room
For just three people.
We were clearly safe to nest
And birth and house
Many more.
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