True North

Job interview this afternoon for a position which means I do not have to translate or offer apologetics for being a priest, first and foremost.  I am looking forward to the interview to find out if it is a possible match to who I am and what I have to offer.

Sometime in the last month

Maybe two

I reoriented

Like a compass

Pointed west northwest

Back to more true

North.

This feels

More right

More true.

I am excited to see

What true north

Brings.

The perfect time to wait

I go into a different space during Holy Week.  This year I also wait for news of a job that would fit into my life in a way which would still allow me to honor the people and commitments I have made.  I sense this job is a part of the mosaic.  Oddly, if it does not come through, I am warmed by the possibility of such a job.  This week I have good company with Jesus.

Holy Week

Is the perfect time

To wait.

It couldn*t be

More perfect,

Ringed around

As it is

With Jesus:

The walk to certain death,

Then finally

Life again.

Always life again

No matter how deep

Death goes.

The perfect time

To wait.

Covered in prayer

This happens sometimes.  I have a job interview today, one that seems to fit a piece of what I feel called to offer the world.  Facebook is for me a way to keep tabs on the ones I care about, so I can pray for them.  It is also a way I can ask for prayer.  This happens sometimes.  I awaken with a sense that God has it completely covered.

I awaken

Covered in prayer,

Flannel, quilted prayer.

The warm guy next to me,

The cup of coffee now held

Warm in my hands.

The birds

Have begun

To build nests of prayer

In my backyard.

The ducks waddle prayer

Across the way.

They make significant steps

Toward the corn spread

For them to eat.

For her part

The woman,

Today in blue,

Spreads prayer

Like so much corn

In her wake.

I watch,

Surrounded on all sides

By prayer,

An abundance

A simple abundance,

Like corn,

Spread for the ducks.

Hammer in hand

Jeff and I saw Terrence Malick*s The Tree of Life last night.  We loved it.  It will require a lot of processing, looking at it from one angle, then another, then another.  Some reviewers have referred to it as a poem or a prayer... not exactly what most people go to movies for.  Job and Ecclesiastes figure big in it.  I note the beginnings of compassion in an interaction between two dinosaurs.  I have no idea how I would write a review of the movie.  It is not a movie to be viewed through a spyglass.  I have found the kaleidoscope my brother gave me.  I may need a new marble.

With a hammer in hand

They say

Everything looks like a nail.

In front of me:

An array of tools

I have learned to use.

In front of me:

Gifts and talents enough

For a jewelry box

Laid out neatly

on velvet trays.

The bottom drawer

Contains the necklaces

That need to be

Unknotted

Before they can be worn.

In front of me:

Many memories ordered,

So many strewn

In my mind,

The bottom drawer full

Of memories

That still need to be

Unknotted,

Before being picked up

Applied.

A hammer in hand

Everything is a nail.

Years ago my brother gave me

A kaleidoscope,

Different marbles

To look through.

Sometimes  I used it

As a spyglass.