Poetry

A Liturgy for the One Who Knows Where They’re Going But Doesn’t Know the Way There

/ Elizabeth Trotter / Leave a comment


God,
I long to follow close behind You,
but I often see dully as through a glass.
I cannot envision what I am meant to be in You,
though I catch glimpses from time to time.

Paul told us to imitate him as he imitated Christ,
and You have set examples among Your people
of what it means to be a living sacrifice,
of what it means to be beloved in Christ.

So make me like Mrs. C.,
who believes in the power of prayer
because it set her free and made her new,
who, like You, does not show favoritism
and believes healing from the Holy Spirit is for everyone,
who has a testimony to tell of Your great power
and won’t stop praying till it comes on earth.

And make me like Father T.,
whose deep knowledge of Your love for him over a lifetime
has settled in his breath and in his bones so deeply that
when he walks into a room, everything changes.
Shoulders relax, souls breathe easier, and
people start to grasp that maybe, just maybe, they really are
as loved as You say we are.

But most of all, God, make me like me,
the me I am meant to be,
the one you dreamed of when you knit me together in the dark.
May I become my true self in You
as You become ever more enfleshed in me.

If it takes a lifetime to become a living sacrifice, 
take my life and daily pour it out.
And if it takes a lifetime to become the beloved one,
take my heart and teach me your incomparable, transcendent love.

I am willing to wait.

(Scriptural inspiration: Psalm 63, Romans 12:1; 1 Corinthians 11:1; 1 Corinthians 13:12; Ephesians 3:14-20; Philippians 2:17)

A Prayer for My Amygdala Today (a somatic practice)

/ Elizabeth Trotter / 2 Comments

Lord,
You know my amygdala—
my emotional danger detector, 
my fear sensor,
my fight-or-flight first responder—
is overactive.

Perhaps this happened naturally,
and I was just born with it.
Perhaps it happened over time
as difficult life experiences accumulated.
More likely it is
some mysterious blending of both.

But I believe You made me moldable, malleable, neuroplastic.
I believe I have the capacity to change through the power of the Spirit.
I believe I can be transformed by the renewing of my mind.
I have seen it happen so many times in my life.

So today
I pray the peace of Christ
over my amygdala.
[place fingers on temples/ears, approximately parallel to amygdala]

Father,
Wrap my limbic system
in the all-surpassing love of Christ.
[wrap fingers around thumbs to simulate God’s love wrapping around the emotional midbrain]

Holy Spirit,
Give me a new heart
and a new mind.
[open hands to God as a symbol of opening heart and mind to His power]

Amen.

//

With gratitude to Dr. Dan Siegel for his hand model of the brain and to the prayer minister at our church, who taught us the power of laying hands on places that need healing, whether in our own bodies or others’ (with permission of course).

Scriptural inspiration: Ezekiel 36:26; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 2:16; Ephesians 3:14-20; 2 Timothy 1:7

A Liturgy for Leaving Work

/ Elizabeth Trotter / 2 Comments

I open my hands at the end of this day
To release the plans I’d intended to make,
All the lists I’d intended to check,
And the sweet relief of finishing it.

The clock ticks later, it’s time to move on,
To leave my lists undone
And transfer affection
Away from work and back toward home.

I won’t fret o’er my troubles or my endless lists,
For You’ll be there with me in every next day that I live.
We’ll pick them up together when the morning comes,
But right now in this moment, I am going home.

Like manna, You give me this day my daily bread
As you have done every day of life.
I trust you with the bread,
I trust you with the work.

But deliver me from overwork, from ruminations
and an endless supply of puzzles to solve.
Help me to choose the better things
As each day folds into night.

I walked in the pastures, I worked in the pastures,
Now I walk to still waters and release unanswered emails.
I pause unfinished work, take a breath, and remember
There are enough problems for each day.

I brought my whole self to this work
And now I take my whole self with it—
To the husband of my youth,
To the children of my womb,
To the life I have been given.

Goodnight, I love you, See you in the morning

/ trotters41 / Leave a comment

by Jonathan

Night fell, as it does
The sky turned, the sun set
And a mother died.

A mother is the first home
A calm, a warmth, a safe haven

Nourishment pours from a mothers heart
And we are filled

But sometimes even mothers get sick
And sometimes their comforting arms shrink in the maze of an oncology suite.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a beautiful funeral
The week after a mother died
They all showed up, told their stories, and cried

And life goes on, as it does
Other homes are built
And more stories are told

But this one, this story
Is mine
And even decades after her last night
I remember

I remember her love
I remember her heart
And I remember anew the last words I spoke in the dark to a mother

Goodnight, I love you, See you in the morning.

The Window {a poem}

/ trotters41 / Leave a comment

They gather here for their daily bread,
and a drink,
Unaware that behind this window is another.

There, a portal opens to an El Salvadorian summer,
a Central African power outage,
a thick Indonesian night.
Paris.

Does he not care more for you than the birds of the yard?

There is such beauty in the large, grand things;
the great arc of justice or rainbow.

But there is beauty too in the miniscule;
the bird on wing,
the hosta’s veiny leaf.
The heart at rest.

Not even a cardinal can fall but that he takes notice and sees.

The world is loud and gaudy, demanding we be afraid,
and drown.
Thanatos lives here.
But there is more.

The rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous.

I will not fear, for through both windows I see the Father at work,
tending,
mending.

I see the living among the dead.

___________________________________________