I Gave This Day to God

Is the name of a lovely poem in today's Speaking to the Soul portion of Episcopal Cafe'. I've provided the link, but here is the poem. It really spoke to me today.

I gave this day to God when I got up, and look,
look what it birthed! There, up the hill, stood

the apple tree, bronze leaves, its fallen apples
spilling richly down the slope, the way God spilled

his seed into Mary, into us. In her the holy promise
came to rest in generous soil after a long

fall. How often it ends in gravel, or dry dust.

Blackberry patches thorny with distraction. Oh,

I pray my soul will welcome always that small
seed. That I will hail it when it enters me.

I don’t mind being grit, soil, dirt, mud-brown,
laced with the rot of old leaves, if only the seed

can find me, find a home and bear a fruit
sweet, flushed, full-fleshed—a glory apple.

“I gave this day to God,” in Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation by Luci Shaw (Eerdmans, 2006).



With my new medication combo, I feel much better. I slept like a rock last night (usually my nights are interrupted by the feeling that my heart is pounding out of my chest), and awakened with prayer on my lips. THAT is a huge change from the past weeks. Praise be!