A song of the Spiritual Traveler, the one who has a profoundly unexpected experience with angels at the gates of mercy. As a result of that one moment, the Spiritual Traveler will never be the same again. This piece appears in This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer from CCAR Press.
Spiritual Vandals
At the gates of an ancient city
A spiritual vandal cracked into my heart.
Stunned,
Expecting the blood of my grief and shame
To sizzle on the hot stone,
Ready to shout,
‘How dare you touch that sacred place,’
I saw a river of light flowing through me.
Starlight. Moonlight. Sunlight. Your light. My light.
Light from the moment of creation.
So much radiance and glory.
Suddenly on my knees,
My forehead on the pilgrim’s path,
I wept.
Now I wait at the gates
For you.
To invite you close,
To let me see the fissure in your heart
Ready to burst,
To touch it with love,
To crack you open
So that you can see the majesty and the beauty
That flows through us all.
Listen,
Dear sisters, dear brothers:
Do not fear the vandals who guard
The gates of mercy.
For mercy is love,
And love is light,
And light seeks light,
And these angels only want to show
That it’s been inside you
All along.
© 2021 CCAR Press from This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer
Postscript: See also “Come Walk.”
Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer,” and This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.
Photo Source: Photo by Alden Solovy
Tags: angels, angels in our midst, healing, mercy, prayer to turn sorrow to joy, Song of the Spiritual Traveler, sorrow, spirit, spiritual journeys