The 60-Second Sabbath

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.

Slipping Off Center

Another day,
another meeting,
more ballyhoo and hullabaloo,
fuss and flapdoodle,
bobbery, bother and blather,
more hoo-ha and foofaraw,
alarums and excursions,
coil and kerfuffle,
Sturm und Drang,
whelter and whirl...

And then it ends.
I sit in silence,
look out at the snow
    gently falling on the city,
breathe deeply
and return to the reality
of stillness.

We so easily slip
off center.

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

In what ways, today,
will you increase your awareness
that you are God's beloved?

By reading this,
you have.

And you might

slow down    sing    sit    keep silence
walk    open    hold hands    absorb
listen    meditate    stretch    observe
release    breathe    read    love
be

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

 

Advent Lament

No, you come to early,
    Lord Jesus:
Just announced, yet here it is,
    two weeks from your arrival.

We've got too much to do...
    Chex Mix to make,
    cookies to bake.
Thank God (I mean, thank your Father)
    the tree's up...
    oh, but not the garland
and gifts to wrap, and cheer to spread--
    nursing-home visits,
    the pageant at church,
a shepherd's staff to craft,
an angel's halo to weave of tinsel.
    Wash the guest-bed sheets!
plump pillows,
plan menus,
purchase the ham...
    (Wait, ham? You're Jewish still?)

Perhaps this year,
    you could come with the kings,
    at Epiphany?
All arrive together
    in your black Crown Victoria?

Above all my heart--
    not quite ready...
Who am I kidding?
    It will take a week, at least,
    to clear it's arrogant clutter.

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

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.

Fireflies

shim'ring shards of light
break from the breast of the moon
drift as night glitter

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

How Poetry Works, Revisited

"Poetry?
No, I don't generally read poetry.
I don't get it."

"Of course not," she said.
"Poetry isn't gotten;
it's absorbed.
You read it,
and read it,
and read it,
and then it's inside of you,

and you are someone else."

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.