Messy Lives…A Pilgrimage to the Holy land

                                    Messy Lives…A Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

Quietly,
in a silent room
—a song
—a prayer ‘sings’ itself
outside my window and I listen.

From a Muslim Mosque
across the Galilean Valley
in THIS town of Nazareth,
prayers became ALIVE.
Their echo is heard before the sun’s arrival.
Allah Awakens.

I pause and join                                        
THIS prayer.
In my breath, YAWEH
clings
bringing together Oneness
stretching across the night sky
across the rolling landscape
across the flowing water ways.

I join others who have
‘risen’ in prayer.

NOW…church bells echo
from the Christian Cathedral.

I hear a symphony
in ‘all’…
the sounds of traffic, a honking horn—
still, the busyness of the day
has not begun.

A rooster crows—
a dog begins to bark

my tiny coffee pot
lets me know it is time to pour.

The aroma fills the air
like incense…                                                        
can I dare draw THIS comparison?

I AM in ‘church’—
Three distinct religions call to me

and yet I feel as if I’m in an
all encompassing MOMENT—
NO religion to be NAMED…
Relationally ‘united’ in ALL things.

In our Messy Lives,
a beauty resides
when quietly, solemnly
we share ourselves
enough to listen.

The sound of a child stirs a parent
and the little one lovingly
is called back to sleep.

BUT, the little one’s dreams
have ‘revealed’
an entry—
the door ‘open’
—time to play.

I awake from THIS messy prayer
NEVER having slept…
(Although you might think these thoughts a culmination of ‘all’—)
these words take on a mind of their own.

I’ll go back
re-read, add on, eliminate
change a line

OR

maybe I’ll leave this mess
and give thanks
for THIS very MOMENT in life.