Second Wind Spiritual Formation Ministries

02/20/2021

https://secondwinddirection.wordpress.com/2021/02/20/late-winters-prayer/

Friends of Second Wind,
I've been silent for quite a while as God has walked me through changes that required some time--a good bit of time, in fact--alone with Him. He is calling me back into a larger community role, and as a result, I'm listening to Him call me to share my prayer-poems again. I'm also looking at renewing my poetry-blogging.
Here is the first run at it.
Happy to see you all again!

God…Good morning. I look at pictures from walks I took in winter landscapes, vast and still. But then… I walk to the kitchen, refill my coffee cup and look across my backyard. It is not…

07/28/2019

You moved this little ministry
That lives inside my human frame,
Moved it from the place of towering stillness,
The century-spanning Hardwoods.
You moved it
To a tall-grass prairie.
Now there’s a wonder.

Where is my canopy?
It’s all just sky up there now.
And what am I to do with that?

For a few days, I saw a thin cape,
—All prairie spiderwort blue—
Spread atop the growing grass.
And that was lovely,
But it’s gone now
And the cone flowers take the stage.
United in form. Diverse in color.
They stand in their slit skirts
Under the clusters of brash yellow
Which would be the compass plants
Towering over.
And just by:
the rattlesnake master,
who rejects the idea of color-glory entirely,
Promotes the honor of form and texture
In its “flowering” days.
And there are plenty of others who have so much to say, and I must listen.
For their lives are brief.
Oh, the next summer will surely
bring more in kind.
They know it.
I know it.
But what is that to this one tickseed flower?

And the wind, it rustles the tall grass all around,
—You see it—
That grass where the black birds perch hilariously
and fuss about everything.

I’d have You notice:
I’m paying attention to this new world where You’ve settled me.
And I’ll keep paying attention until
They all bed down for winter.

10/22/2017

Sixth months ago (to the day, it turns out) I made my last post here on Second Wind, writing a poem that reflected on a woodland walk I took in springtime. Through that poem, I addressed what I anticipated: a long season of hard work ahead of me. I was not wrong. It was not an easy sabbatical from Second Wind for me.
Today I walked the same path in the autumn.

October...
She seems so ready to hand the keys over to November;
Still, she keeps me company on my way.
And we do church together.
I see to my left
(to the West)
the terrain is boggy and thick with wilting grass.
But to my right
(to the East)
are stands of trees cut through here and there by a woodland trace.
A single-file path
(probably not even the work of humans)
leading back to a silver lake.
(now that the leaves are dropping, you can see it,
reflecting light)
To the West, a wasp nest dangles just above the trail.
To the East, the oak leaves are turning red.
(as though dipped in blood and hung to dry)

Everywhere,
a strong wind brings the promise of autumn rain.
A hawk glides across its current,
and then a second...and a third.
A refurbished squirrel drey bobs in it;
And the spicy scent of fermenting green hulls
(fallen from black walnut branches )
wafts along on it.

God tells October to spread these out for me.
She shows me the leaves, how they are getting tired.
Some still hold the green, but many have fallen.
And then she turns and bows her head toward
A cardinal who dives into an evergreen tree
(hiding itself deep in the prickly branches)
Then awfully quickly
(and making a lateral swoop)
it perches on the thin, bare branch of a dead deciduous.
Its chirp does not change with the scenery.
Its chirp does not change with the loss of cover.
Its chirp doesn not change at all.

04/22/2017

Today I went walking with God,
for comfort's sake.
I told Him I feel like a tree
whose spring blossoms have almost all fallen.
No more frothy softness.
No more breath-taking color.
No more heady aroma wafting off me in a light warm breeze.

Now I have to accept this:
It is the season of green leaves.
The season of being just another patch of green.
Working.
Making oxygen so others can breathe.
Constantly reaching up, up for sunlight, down, down for water, for minerals.
What's especially hard is
other trees still flaunt their blooms.
I told God all this.
I'm in mid-life, and this is what it's about.

But God reminded me:
one day my leaves will lose the dullish common green,
green that professes
constant labor,
draining heat,
faded sky hanging
over a heavy summer.

One day my leaves will have a different way to be.
Riotous color from stem to tip.
True color that's always been there, waiting until the hard work of making food is finished.
Vibrant. Authentic.
Unique. Lovely.
I just have to remember this:
there is beauty hidden within me, waiting
even now.

03/10/2017

Artwork: William-Adolphe Bouguereau

03/08/2017

Meet Friar Bigotón (Friar Moustache), the stray doggie who just became a member of a St Francis Monastery in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The saint after which the Franciscan order was established is known as the patron of animals, so it's only natural that the monks extended their helping hand to the pooch...

03/05/2017

"Certainly God speaks through words but so often it seems he speaks without them. Not because He can't speak or because we can't hear, but because words are often the least effective way of communicating.
No one know that more, I think, than a writer..."
--Ken Gire in Windows of the Soul

Are you looking for communication from God that is larger than words?

03/03/2017

Artwork: Gary Bunt

03/01/2017

In the words of

02/26/2017

02/21/2017

"There is no panic in Heaven! God has no problems, only plans.”
-Corrie Ten Boom

"Call to me and I will answer you, and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."
-Jeremiah 33:3