Poems believe.

I'm finding it a little easier to just begin praying whenever I think of it. No need to launch into some preparatory salutation. I just begin. I just start where I left off. It occured to me while I was waiting for the light at the corner of State College and Lambert, that Christ is really on my side.

Why not! I believe so much about Him anyway. Why not go the whole way and imagine Him at pains to have me reach the wholeness I long for? I smiled at us, there in the car. It didn't seem to matter that I had no visual of Him. I can't truly see myself either, but I believe in my own existence.
So as soon as I come down from my philosophical heights, I feel immediately attentive. I am that much more alive, in this believing state. Suddenly, it's okay to love fiercely. It's right to be patient. It's what I am- to have a dream and to work it out. Then I talk to Him and I wonder aloud what He's thinking. I trust that I know, as I wonder. Whatever I come up with seems fine to Him. ("whatever is good, right, praise worthy; go ahead and think on that".)

I write poems and they feel like a set of weights I lift in reps. Each time I work them, I feel the muscle of my faith reaching out. I am moving through something and searching it out. A lantern is lifted above my head in the space I explore. I wouldn't go if I didn't feel safe. I'm not brave. Rather, these exercises of poems make me create a familiar landscape. I expect gifts. And I get them. I write my own "read", a good word of prayer. I write them all day long and some of them in ink.