Writing over Anger with Love

This poem reflects something I need to give and receive in my life now…something I’ve lost beneath blinding rage. It isn’t pretty and I need to release it and grasp on tightly to the love of God.  The poem is a critique of church rules and right ways of doing things. However, the silly lies of anger are written on my walls.  I’ve been here before, recently even.  Something clicked tonight at church, and I breathed in the life-giving breath of God.  I hope love is written on my heart, and that this time it lasts—that God’s graffiti will paint over the anger permanently—I don’t want to sink back into that angry place.

God’s Graffiti

We’ve splashed our rules
all over the sanctuary walls…
so many rules we don’t have time
for dancing…
our graffiti
defiling the house of God.
God’s graffiti is different:
God writes LOVE
upon our hearts.
Some night, let’s sneak in the sanctuary
and paint over the rules
and write God’s graffiti
all over the walls…
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE

— Ann Weems

Memory

Memory

And you wait, await the one thing
that will infinitely increase your life;
the gigantic, the stupendous,
the awakening of stones,
depths turned round toward you.

The volumes in brown and gold
flicker dimly on the bookshelves;
and you think of lands traveled through,
of paintings, of the garments
of women found and lost.

And then all at once you know: that was it.
You rise, and there stands before you
the fear and prayer and shape
of a vanished year.

— Rainer Maria Rilke

Welcome, Autumn…

Yesterday, Sunday 23 September, was the autumnal equinox, the first day of Autumn. I delight in the transition from summer into winter–how the leaves change color and dance to the ground. This is the season of transition, a season where change is brought before our senses. Let us welcome the transition and experience the autumn with joy!

The moon is full, the autumn nights grow longer,
In the north forests startled crows cry out.
Still high overhead, the star river stretches,
The Dipper’s handle set to southwest.
The cold cricket grieves deep in the chambers,
Of the notes of sweet birds, none remain.
Then one evening gusts of autumn come,
One who sleeps alone thinks fondly on thick quilts.
Past loves are a thousand miles farther each day,
Blocked from my drifting and my sinking.
Man’s life is not as the grass and trees;
Still the season’s changes can stir the heart.

      Wei Ying Wu