For My Mentor, "A"

A former professor of mine, someone I now consider a friend, has received a diagnosis of cancer and is recovering now from surgery. He faces chemo and radiation in the near future. This man means the world to me. I was never one of his clients, obviously, but his encouragement, honesty, sense of humor, and care for me while I was in seminary (10 years) healed me in some profound ways. I have been in constant prayer for him and his sweet wife since I heard this news.

This blessing from John O'Donohue goes out to both of them.

For Light

Light cannot see inside things.

That is what the dark is for:

Minding the interior,

Nurturing the draw of growth

Through places where death

In its own way turns into life.

In the glare of neon times,

Let our eyes not be worn

By surfaces that shine

With hunger made attractive.

That our thoughts may be true light,

Finding their way into words

Which have the weight of shadow

To hold the layers of truth.

That we never place our trust

In minds claimed by empty light,

Where one-sided certainties

Are driven by false desire.

When we look into the heart,

May our eyes have the kindness

And reverence of candlelight.

That the searching of our minds

Be equal to the oblique

Crevices and corners where

The mystery continues to dwell,

Glimmering in fugitive light.

When we are confined inside

The dark house of suffering

That moonlight might find a window.

When we become false and lost

That the severe noon-light

Would cast our shadow clear.

When we love, that dawn-light

Would lighten our feet

Upon the waters.

As we grow old, that twilight

Would illuminate treasure

In the fields of memory.

And when we come to search for God,

Let us first be robed in night,

Put on the mind of morning

To feel the rush of light

Spread slowly inside

The color and stillness

Of a found word.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)