Black grackles and speckled starlings,
with yellow beaks and rusty throated chatter
clatter up and down the branches
gleaning the leavings of winter’s suet cakes.
A pile of must-read books
litter my desk and the chair before the window
where I come to pray.
Wisdom and knowledge at my fingertips,
and the perfect YouTube video of a good life,
forwarded from friend to friend,
promises to change everything.
Click here now.
How long do you stand on the street corner,
listening to the preachers and barkers?
How long do you slurp up the news,
opinions, and seductions of others?
How long do you sit on the couch
of the world consuming secondhand notions,
lies, and rumors?
When will you sit down before mystery
and invite it to come rest in your lap,
your lap, I mean, your heart and singular, scintillating body?
When do you stop singing somebody else’s song
and chasing somebody else’s god
and coveting somebody else’s experience?
When, oh when,
dear, irreplaceable you,
will you lay
yourself down in your own true,
blue bonnet strewn field of a life?
And say to the starling –
Here come, with your little orange feet and strange black eye.
How precious you are in that freckled jacket.
And I ask you,
how many prayer breakfasts,
committee meetings, and strategy sessions,
how many well-intentioned,
and not so well-intentioned,
soldiers of truth
gathering to plot their version of a perfect world
must we salute?
Just how long will it take, do you think,
for us to be safe enough
and gentle enough
and humble enough
for the shy weary God to come and lay his head?
Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests,
but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Matthew 8: 18-22
A YouTube video on Matthew 8: 18-22
The Praying Life 