Living Tree Poetry

“Our Lamb has conquered, let us follow him.”
Motto of Moravian Brotherhood

“To have courage with what comes in life, everything lies in that”
St Theresa of Avila

“You are loved, you are forgiven, and you are guided toward wholeness – regardless of your life situation.”
Bruce Epperly

“God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.  As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’”
Acts 17:27-28

MY PRAYER today is for his guidance, his comfort, his presence, his leading.  I note that I have put the emphasis on on ‘his’. Not ‘ours’.  Today may we remember there is nothing WE have to do in order to be led, to be held, to receive him. Nothing we need to do to be led but follow, nothing we have to do to receive but let down our defences, nothing we have to do to be held but stand still – sit still, lie down even, if we can no longer stand.    He holds us.  “All shall be well…”

We cannot hold him; but still close to him we are held.
We cannot love him as he deserves, but it was he who loved us first.
We cannot chain him in, but in chains of love we are bound.
We cannot bind the infinite God, but it is us that He surrounds.
From my Poem ‘Surrounded by Love’

Artwork: Richard Schmid (Garden of Bright Images)

These are drawn from daily prayers and reflections I write for my Chaplaincy colleagues.