Give me more food
for this fire
that leaps out
of its cell
free and amused.
Joanna Wiebe, June 17, 2006, Princeton, New Jersey
I wrote this poem while at a Fellowship in Prayer conference at Princeton. This event was life-changing for me. I learned to love the act of prayer, and I learned more deeply just exactly what prayer is in my life. Basically, anything I do with my body.
As I recall, by the end of the event, I felt truly educated, and liberated, and . . . hot. It was a very warm weekend at the University and the rooms were not air conditioned. I met persons of dozens of faiths from around the world, and danced, sang, meditated, walked the labyrinth, participated in a Taize service, chanted — and prayed in the traditional ways I learned as a child, too…”Our father…” and the blessings before meals, and more.
The photo is a shot of a redbud in the crevice of a limestone wall of a house my friend Liz rented for awhile in Lawrence, Kansas. It is said this house was lived in once by famous beat poets and writers, and before that, a Swedish immigrant farm family. I visited Liz a couple of years ago in mid-April, and the buds opened that weekend.
