Declaration

In the whirl and whip
Of these worry-filled
Winds of Winter
They hurry through bare-branched forest and
Blow their bone rattling cold
Through marrow and soul
Whispering wintry words without mercy or promise
Except the promise to steal steam from coffee
And fling it into infinite cold
Endless cold
Forevercold.

Night after night
The dark wind howls
Outside windows
And threatens to enter
And creeps through cracks
And open doors
And haunts basement floors
Taking all it can take
With a lust for more

And yet

The Light makes way
Without detection (at first)
And day by day
Captures some cold
One minute at a time

Sequestered cold
Still overconfident
Still ignorant
Still threatening
Still cold
Stilled

Light only (at first)
To show the robin where to fly
Before thought of flight ignited
To call the flower to bloom
Buried deep in a seed
Before it thought to awake

Then Sun whispers warm
Breaths into the wind
The bird hears first
Then sings songs earlier this morning
Than the morning before
With patient wooing
Of sleeping seeds

Reluctant cold
Relents and retreats
At the soothing songs of the Sun

Rousing flower from seed
To reach for light
From buried darkness
To break the Earth
To rise and declare –
“Spring!”

A Prayer For Research

God of all Truth,
Maker of the Universe,
Keeper of all Knowledge,
You are the Maker of makers,
The Creator of creators,
The Builder of builders;

We gather here,
Together with each other,
Together with you,
Hungering and thirsting for righteousness,
And as we seek this righteousness,
In Part, through this advanced training,
We ask for your guidance and blessing;

We gather to learn and consume knowledge;
We gather to learn how to apply the knowledge we consume;
However, we gather to learn the sacred task of creating knowledge.

We come with our confidence;
We come with our insecurities;
We come with our wise assumptions;
We come with our foolish assumptions;
We come carrying beliefs that may be supported;
We come carrying beliefs that may be crushed,
And we enter into what is reserved for the very few
In this world,
In this history –
We come to create knowledge
We hope reflects truth,
We hope reflects Truth
For our own understanding and
For the understanding of the world.

Give us child-like curiosity,
Child-like imagination,
Child-like innocence,
As we take our hands and minds
And put them to the powerful and sacred tools
Of knowledge creation.

Give us maturity beyond our years,
Give us wisdom beyond our experience and observation,
Give us humility to match the courage needed,
To take our hands and minds
And put them to the powerful and sacred tools
Of knowledge creation.

Give us ears to hear
The knowledge creators who have gone before us,
Who have pushed the edge of knowledge out to where it is,
Who have pioneered and struggled in the uncreated
So we will walk simply where they labored,
Give us critical minds to discern
The knowledge created before us.
Give us humility to respect
The knowledge created before us,
While maintaining all the wild imagination
You have already set in motion within us.

Thank you for the privilege
To be a creation who creates.

Amen

Praying under the Waterfall

Praying under the coldest waterfall
On the hottest day
For all that dirt
To wash away
To return to the earth
For another chance
To grow something beautiful
To sing and to dance
With the rhythm unbroken
Just pounding down
Applause of angels
Endless sound
Too much to drink
Too much to take in
Too much to control
Too much for my sin
Endless love
Liquid scripture
Healing imperfections
Filling fissures
With clean clean water
For a sore sore soul
It's never going to end
I'm never going to go