ONE HEARTFUL THING #2

Closer than our very breath

Sarlat-la-Canéda,France. Image: Mary Thoma

A quick hello from France as the 40th wedding anniversary trip continues!

I ran across this poem again recently and I remembered how much I loved it the first time I read it. One of my intentions for this trip was to breathe in as much beauty and joy as I could posssibly hold. One of my teachers, Jim Finley, talks about how we are always walking around in God and with God. As God exhales, we inhale. As we exhale, God inhales. Possibly “one of the worst things we ever did was to put God in the sky” instead of remembering again and again that God is closer than our breath itself.

This poem is a lovely addition to that thought.

Xo Mary

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The worst thing we ever did
was put God in the sky
out of reach

pulling the divinity
from the leaf,
sifting out the holy from our bones,
insisting God isn’t bursting dazzlement
through everything we’ve made
a hard commitment to see as ordinary,
stripping the sacred from everywhere
to put in a cloud man elsewhere,
prying closeness from your heart.

The worst thing we ever did
was take the dance and the song
out of prayer
made it sit up straight
and cross its legs
removed it of rejoicing
wiped clean its hip sway,
its questions,
its ecstatic yowl,
its tears.

The worst thing we ever did is pretend
God isn’t the easiest thing
in this Universe
available to every soul
in every breath.

by Chelan Harkin

From her poetry book ‘Susceptible to Light’

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