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Delight Delight Sublime Sublime Turn inward Turn out It’s there Quiet everything Stop in your tracks No need to close your eyes Open them wide As wide as the world Open them deep Your ears too As deep as canyons and caverns as bold as their echoes No need to travel Do this in your own front yard Or from your balcony Or stoop or high tiny window Even if sirens are blaring Even if the grey cement feels like it is creeping toward you Like the cold void Like your own tomb Look and listen and touch whatever tree is nearby that sings with birds who haven't given up on this place Who haven't given up on this tree Who will never give up on you No trees? Look and listen and touch whatever thin blades of grass or weedy pioneers have squeezed their way through the cracks and dared to flower yellow right in the face of somber grey No grass? Then look at the rain Drop by drop Silvery and quick That calls to you That speaks directly to your thirst That says your own name you know to be true deep down whose cool liquid you can feel at the back of your throat even as it runs down your face Hasn’t rained? Then look at the sky In its sun-risen glory With colors the cement can never tame With an eastern glow even your skin can’t keep out Maybe for some reason you can’t see the sky today Maybe you can’t bear to look up or even east? It’s ok Look at your own hands Open them As open as they’ll go Stretch the tendons of your fingers The callouses of work Look at every line Every crease Listen and look and touch You’ll hear it and see it and feel it No time? That's a lie you can't afford to believe Stand squarely in the chaos of your life and say This I can do This I will take This crack in the minutes Where life can inch through Where the weedy pioneers will throw seed This inconceivable fraction of a second And that’s where it starts The garden where everything is planted Will show up With birds in tow With the great predators too With flowers and fragrance and fruit Perfect, delicious, sublime No matter who you are No matter where you are You are always the place where gentleness resides Unclinch your hands Palms up Questions for meditation: Do you sometimes feel unable to find beauty, to find the Maker of all things, to find the clear, quiet Presence of Love? The chatter of life and our own minds can threaten it. What would it be like to trust that it's there, to give just the tiniest opening every day to welcome it, the Delight, the Sublime, the Divine? A prayer using words: Divine Presence, Universal Gentleness, we know your presence is always with us, around us, in us. Give us the smallest amount of faith in that truth so we might unclinch our hands for just a moment in the chaos and busy-ness and next thing to do, so that we might see you, feel you, hear you, be healed by you. We know this is how our hearts, our lives, and the world will change into the Gentleness you are, that we're called to be. Amen.