The 60-Second Sabbath

Good Dough

Like a good dough
destined to become fragrant, hot bread,
dripping with melted butter and sweet honey,
I, too, occasionally need to be punched down,
deflated,
returned to an earlier state,
and left in a warm, quiet place
to rise again.

Like a good dough,
I, too, relish a hard knead
by hands knowing and strong.

Like a good dough
ready for presentation at the dinner table,
golden and crusty on the outside,
yielding and finely textured within,
I, too, must withstand the heat of the oven,
the cut of the knife.

Text and image © 2015 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Essential Self

You are not your history;
your history is not you.

You are not your family;
your family is not you.

You are not what you believe;
your beliefs are not you.

You are not your accomplishments;
what you've done is not you.

You are not your thoughts about you;
what you think is not who you are.

You are not the friends you have;
your relationships are not you.

You are not the job you have;
your career is not you.

You are not the body you've sculpted,
    the car you drive,
    the salary you make,
    the clothes you wear,
    the stuff you own,
    the identity you cling to...

All of the above is over there;
you are over here.

Without it all,
here you are,
same you,
no more, no less,
complete,
worth celebrating,
definitely worth celebrating.

Do you affirm your stripped and naked,
    solitary, essential self?

Text and image © 2015 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Advents

It's Advent,
and there are more arrivals
than that of sweet baby Jesus:

the train of memory drops them off,
one by one, as it circles the tree--
    pets and playmates,
    classmates and cousins,
    parents and neighbors,
    siblings and colleagues,
    dreams and regrets,
    loss and healing...
all that I'd love
and misplaced,
back again to visit,
come home,
as the train comes round again,
as the year turns,
as the season slides silently by.

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

Related articles

Advent Prayer

Advent Grief

How, at your end, are things?

Christmas just a few weeks away
and such sudden emptiness
of home, of heart

death leaves us vacant;
I have felt it;
negative space the shape of your beloved

for a time
you shall occupy that space
cry there, breathe there
fall into sleep there,
    a sleep not unlike death
unfathomably, you shall heal there
there in that nothingness

it's not a dangerous place
just necessary and sad

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

The Approach

Advent,
    and who is this approaching?

What hidden self
    emerges from the woods,
    the crawl space,
    the garden labyrinth?

What time-hidden, reclusive divine embodiment
    has Word to give,
    Word to enflesh,
    my Word, that Word?

What lost unspokenness
    now comes to the end of its wandering?

Where will be this birthing,
    its pain, its release,
    its joy, its terror?

Giving birth. Being birthed.

Advent,
    and what is this approaching?

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

Veils

Throughout life
each loss
removes another of the veils
that obscure the Mystery
we desperately yearn
to see and hold.

Some veils
slip slowly from their rods,
like so much sighing.

Some veils
are torn away
by sudden and ferocious winds,
like flashes of celestial anger.

Loss hurts so very much.

But there is this, at least--
by now we are many veils closer,
so many veils closer...

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

The Pier

I stand at the end of the pier,
face to the dark and the wind.
Waves roll toward me,
each one another tomorrow--
identical tomorrows,
endless.
I feel chilled;
the wind, the waves, the loneliness
empty me.

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

Because Things Do

Things fall apart
    then reassemble.
Life unravels
    then weaves back together.
The water overwhelms
    then recedes.

This is always the pattern;
    we've lived it 1,000 times,
    survived it 1,000 times.

Yet always
    between the disaster
    and the recovery,
    between the spill
    and the cleanup
is a point of despair,
    of "It will always be this way"
    and "What's the point?"
rarely "This too shall pass...
    like all others have passed."

This too shall pass
    because things do.

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.

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.