God Follows Me Everywhere

God follows me everywhere— 
Spins a net of glances around me, 
Warms my sightless back like the sun.

God follows me like a forest everywhere. 
My lips, filled with wonder, are fully numb, dumb 
Like a child who blunders upon an ancient holy place.

God follows me like a shiver everywhere. 
The desire in me is for rest; the demand within me is: Rise up,
See how prophetic visions lie neglected in the streets!

I wander with my reveries as with a secret
In a long corridor through the world— 
And sometimes I see, high above me, the faceless face of God.

- Abraham Joshua Heschel -

     Artist: Maureen L. White, www.urbanpasturesart.com

Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?

Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it.
It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white
feet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?
Haven’t the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?

Don’t call this world an explanation, or even an education.
When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so solidly there
in a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring,

as he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
in the garden of dust?

 Artist: Maureen L. White, www.urbanpasturesart.com

Who are you, God?

Most high, most good,
most potent, most omnipotent;
most merciful, yet most just;
most hidden, yet most present;
most beautiful, yet most strong,
stable, yet incomprehensible;
unchangeable, yet all-changing;
never new, never old;
all-renewing, and bringing age upon the proud, and they know it not;
ever working, ever at rest;
still gathering, yet nothing lacking;
supporting, filling, and overspreading;
creating, nourishing, and maturing;
seeking, yet having all things.

- Saint Augustine -

     Artist: Maureen L. White, www.urbanpasturesart.com

Our Hearts Are Ever Restless

You have formed us 

for Yourself, and so our hearts 

are ever restless till they find 

their rest in You.

How, O God, will I find my rest in You? When 

will You come flowing to my heart that it may be 

absolutely drenched, that, drunk with you, I may 

forget my sorrows, knowing only your embrace, 

my one and only good, O lover of humankind? 

- Saint Augustine of Hippo -

    Artist: Maureen L. White, www.urbanpasturesart.com

All Good Things Are Held Intricately Bound

Best belovéd, all good things

are held intricately bound to one another. 

Prayer is bound to love, and love to joy. 

Joy avails meekness, and meekness feeds humility. 

Humility leads to service, just as service offers hope. 

Hope shores up our faith, and faith obtains obedience, 

which becomes a newfound liberty.

- Saint Makarios of Egypt - 

    Artist: Maureen L. White, www.urbanpasturesart.com

The Whole World is Secretly on Fire

I will try like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can one be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can we dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?

- Thomas Merton -

    Artist: Maureen L. White, www.urbanpasturesart.com

Such Love Does the Sky Now Pour

Such love does

the sky now pour,

that whenever I stand in a field,

I have to wring out the light

when I get

home.

- Saint Francis of Assisi -

    Artist: Maureen L. White, www.urbanpasturesart.com