Photo by Marthin Suhl Creative Commons 2.0
Lord, life’s a whirlpool.
So much to do.
I rush around, faster and faster,
intent on today,
this moment.
Never looking beyond the immediate.
My good intentions,
wet and waterlogged,
slide down the plug hole,
gone.
Out there,
on the blurred edge of vision,
people stand, beckon, call.
So indistinct I can pretend
I don’t see them,
except to myself.
But I rush on.
No time.
Scattering, perhaps,
a little largesse on the way.
Greasing the palm of charity.
My once bright conscience dulled
with tarnished generosity.
Encrusted rust, self-damaging.
My own collecting boxes
full of good intentions,
never cashed.
And yet, Lord,
there are moments
when I hear your voice.
Soft, yet insistent.
Your voice, coming,
not from some cloudy heaven
above, beyond,
but somehow centered
in the people I ignore.
And when I take my courage in both hands –
and doing that
means putting down my diary first –
and turn to them,
I find I’ve turned to you.
Among the lonely.
You are the neighbor I ignored.
The injured on the Jericho road.
And when I walk by,
on the other side,
I sidestep love,
and I’m the lonely one,
Self-exiled by my busyness.
Lord, help me try again.
Find time for others.
Find time for you.
From Facing the Storm
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