The 60-Second Sabbath

Time for a Break

I'm choosing to take a break from The 60-Second Sabbath. I will return, but for the next month at least, with three weeks of travel and some major work deadlines, I'm going to give myself some extra space and allow the blog to lie fallow.

Thank you to all of you who follow the blog and, from time to time, respond. It is all greatly appreciated!

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Invitation 4

Hi, all. My blogging service, Typepad, was under attack and rendered inoperable since last Thursday. Today, Tuesday, it's up and running again. What follows is what I had intended to post Friday through Sunday (Good Friday through Easter), pulled together into one entry:

Today
I invite you
to live large enough
to embrace the losses.

Today
I invite you
to look to the horizon,
to place yourself
in the widest possible context.

Today
I invite you
to shoulder aside the stone
and step living from the tomb.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Invitation 3

Today
I invite you
to meet Wisdom
in silence
and discover
how extraordinary she is.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Invitation 2

Today
I invite you
to welcome the Encounter
and not hide from it.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Invitation 1

Today
I invite you
to come out
from behind yourself.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Another Prayer for Lent

Let me stretch imagination.
Let me break the curve of time.
Let me cut through bland convention
to the heart of the divine.

Let me say the unexpected.
Let me be what's on God's mind.
Let me leap to reach the heaven
I have faith is fully mine.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Soon Enough

Death comes soon enough;
Why invite it in early?

    Why be jealous? Why be angry?
        Why nurse the grudge,
        rehearse the hurt?
    Why resent? Why fear?

Why welcome decay?
Why hurry death?

Soon enough. Soon enough.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

John 13:23

Why does John
refer to
"the disciple whom Jesus loved"
and not name him/her?

John employs a literary device:
by leaving that disciple unnamed,
that disciple becomes me;
that disciple becomes you.

I...you...
recline on Jesus' breast,
cheek to chest,
feeling his warmth,
the rise and fall of his breath.

Listen to his heart beat;
let his beat
be yours,
his beat
be yours,
his beat
be yours...

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Sophia in the Kitchen

I intended
to grab my briefcase
and quickly exit the garage,
when I was stopped by Sophia.
She stood in the kitchen
holding my smart phone in one hand
and my tablet in the other.
"Good morning," she said,
entirely too cheerfully.

So much for making it to work on time.
"Morning," I mumbled.

"You could pretend
to be glad to see me,"
she said.

I sighed.
"Yes, I know,
it's just that..."

"...you're in a hurry,"
she finished my sentence.
"You are nearly always in a hurry."
She waved both devices in the air.
"And these are supposed to help
all of you
who are in such a hurry."

Here it comes, I thought.

"I have two questions for you.
Here's the first."
She held up the cell phone.
"Do you make eye contact
as often as you text?"

I started to speak,
but she held up her hand
(the one with the phone)
to stop me.
"Rhetorical questions, sweetie;
don't answer,
just think."

I closed my mouth.
"Second question,"
she said, as she held up the tablet.
"Do you search as often for God
as you do for WiFi?"

With that, she handed me both items
and asked a third, unrelated, nonrhetorical question:
"Do you have any of those big English muffins left?"

I pointed to the toaster
beside which the muffins, the butter and the jam
still stood from breakfast.
I'd been in too much of a hurry
to put them away.

"Splendid," she said.
"I'll just help myself;
you run along to the office."

I jammed the tablet into the briefcase
next to the laptop,
and my smart phone
alongside my work iPhone.

I snapped the case shut,
hefted it onto my shoulder
and winced.
"It gets heavier and heavier," I said.

We made eye contact.
"No doubt," she said.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Prayer for Lent

Lead us, O God,
from the beautiful,
to the good,
to the true.

Lead us, O God,
from what catches the eye and the breath,
to what quickens the heart and the conscience,
to what cradles the soul and the spirit.

Lead us, O God,
ever deeper
into you.

Amen.

Text and image © 2014 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.