Prayer often includes a wider bandwidth than we often think. Prayer means talking to God, but even more, prayer means listening to God, listening for God. Prayer is action. Prayer is sitting still. Prayer happens through our hopes and through our tears. Prayer happens through songs and mental images, through smells and sounds and tastes. Prayer happens with words, and (thank goodness) when our words completely fail us. Prayer happens in any place and in any way open to God’s presence.
-Winn Collier, Love Big. Be Well.
Author: Jason Kanz
I am a neuropsychologist at the Marshfield Clinic and author of Soil of the Divine (2017), Living in the Larger Story: The Christian Psychology of Larry Crabb (2019, editor), and Notes from the Upper Room: Lessons in Loving Like Jesus (2020).
Christians should be as delighted in the things of sight and sense as God is himself, when at the instant of every creational act, he declares goodness to be observable, enjoyable, and usable. Of all people, Christians should have the best noses, the best eyes and ears, the most open joy, the widest sense of delight. That the opposite is often the case is no fault of the Lord’s. How interesting that God, in correcting the ruminations of Job and his three advisers, turned to his work as Imaginer and Maker rather than his holiness.
-Harold Best
I did not
have to ask my heart what it wanted,
because of all the desire I have ever known,
just one did I cling to
for it was the essence of
all desire:
to hold beauty in
my soul’s
arms.-St John of the Cross
Judah’s Lion
The Lion of Judah,
walks the earth;
He began in a stable,
the humblest birth.
Now splendor and majesty,
He wears as His mane;
Our glorious King,
His death is our gain.
Strength and beauty,
reflect all His ways;
“of course He is good,
but He is not safe.”
We tremble in worship,
awed at His splendor;
forgetting ourselves,
in reverent surrender.
The seas roar aloud,
the fields do cheer;
all creation rejoices,
when Aslan is near.
Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
Psalm 96:6
You Might Hear If You Listen
abundant glory
you might hear if you listen
but you plug your ears
11/9 PAD prompt: ___ if ____
G2
Six inch cylinder
translucent and black,
cradled perfectly
in my hand.
But I should get to the point.
Less than 1/2 millimeter
restraining miles of ink
to write who knows what.
I confess that my eyes wander
and I am wooed by other pens.
I relent
and then regret,
for you G2 are,
as the box promises,
“Ultra Fine.”
11/8 PAD prompt: a thing poem
broken before God
shedding fig leaves and pretense
opens us to grace
Week Days
For the farmer
week days do not exist.
Weeks? Yes.
Days? Yes.
But weekdays? No.
Nature
and not time clocks
dictates their rhythm.
Today’s PAD prompt: “week days”
Yet the Sun Ascends
A world bound in grief
longing for relief
suffering abounds
pain is all around.
Innocence dying
evil ever trying
to rule human hearts
tearing us apart.
Yet the sun ascends
bringing grace again
its daily duty
revealing beauty.
Let our tears become
prisms for the sun
pain’s crystalline lens
bending praise to heav’n.
PAD Prompt: Praise Poem
I wrote this poem as part of the Writer’s Digest 2017 PAD Chapbook Challenge. Each day, a new prompt is posted. I missed the first 5 days, but likely will go back and try those prompts too.
A Self-Centered Nuisance
Little mesh silos
holding back
an abundance of food–
thistle seed, cracked corn, black oil sunflower seed,
and cakes of suet.
An avian feast.
It took a day or two
before the little flycatcher
accepted the invitation to dine and then
countless return trips to the buffet line.
Soon, he was joined by
a cardinal, decked out in crimson,
a Downie woodpecker, with just a splash of red,
and several black-capped chickadees.
Then the chipmunk came.
Though not the typical clientele,
he too was welcome.
But he ignored the signs:
“Eat as much as you like,
but don’t remove food from the premises.”
Welcome guest turned self-centered nuisance,
scaring off the other guests.
Greed like his is what
makes the generous
regret their gifts.
Jason Kanz 