“To kiss your eyes open,” a poem/prayer for healing

To kiss your eyes open

You cannot care for your soul
if you do not believe
you have one–
that you are one–
your life a great circle cast out
into the darkness that welcomes you,
that yearns for you to know
its promise, the secrets it holds
with the softest hands,
waiting for you to see,
to kiss your eyes open
as you marvel at the Great Love
in each saturated moment. 

There is, in our woundedness,
a taste of salvation,
a planted seed, waiting
for the deep truth of healing. 

Now is the time to name
what nourishes life,
stretching the roots of our being
far into the fertile soil
of God’s own body,
our Mother, our true home. 

We continue to ask what we can do, given the tension we feel, the frustration and fear. One of my favorite cashiers at Publix was asking me the other day, quietly, of course, so no one else around us could really hear. “I’m so anxious,” she said. “I just don’t know.”

Of course there is the impulse to keep our heads down, to avert our eyes and numb ourselves to the jarring feeling that seems soaked in the air.

Yes, it feels overwhelming, but so is grace. So is the Great Love that saturates all life with God’s presence. We have not stopped living, and as I texted a couple friends last week, I don’t have time to despair. There is too much to love.

That is my prayer, and this poem flows from that place in my heart.

So what gives you hope? From where do you draw your strength? Your courage, that deep force of your heart that leads you to step forward?

Blessings, always,

Stuart