A Prayer for Resiliency (Lisa)

You text me

Pray for resiliency.

to carry all that you carry,

to withstand and spring back from

the Stretch,

struggles enormous,

but you will do this, my friend.

You will be resilient.

You already have.

Resiliency: a muscle reserved for the Big Stuff

Rarely used

So you’ll feel the strain,

the stretch, taut.

I thought to pray to God and ask,

Give us muscle memory.

Help us remember

how beautifully we DID stretch

how easily in the end

how clear and precise

how decisive and powerful

this sinewy muscle of Spirit.

Is it possible to carry

this gift we forget we hold,

into the mundane smallness of life ahead?

to remember our resiliency

as we deal with the little slings and arrows of each day

Help us Lord,

Make us BIGGER in the chapters to come

as we brush off the smallness

to live the life of love and joy

set out before us

like an enormous feast of beauty.

O this world! Yes! Amen!

Meanwhile my friend…

as you make this enormous stretch,

we will kneel side by side, tearing out weeds

planting green hopeful things

watering thirsty ones

and share the telling of despair

yours, and I will tell you mine*

flexing our sinewy spirit,

as we ponder our place in the family of things*

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Mary Oliver