Water into wine

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


Bottle up all your life.
Go ahead: every day, past and future:
all the great accomplishments and failures,
the elegant leaps and pratfalls, the love
you've left behind, the undiscovered miracles,
the little kindnesses, impossible to measure,
the things you've said (you've forgotten them),
words of comfort or wisdom, the lousy jokes,
the days spent doing chores, letters you wrote
and didn't write, nights lying awake,
years spent longing for brilliance,
moments staring at the sea, acts of courage,
all the little trips down the sidewalk to the mailbox,
the people you've touched (don't bother counting,
you can't even know. Just pour them in)—
and all that is to come: the speeches and silences,
the gallant deeds and silly stunts,
all of your prayers and their shallowness
and unfathomable grace, your quiet glowing,
how you will grow old, the way you will walk
when you are eighty-five, the things you will say
to those much younger than yourself.
Oh, and your death, your dwindling down,
your last surrendering, and what you leave,
breath seeping out of you like light...
Take it all and bottle it up and put it on the shelf
and forget it for a long time.
When you remember again, uncork it and see
if that water hasn't been changed to finest wine.

Don't ask me how,
but it happens every time.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________
Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight@hotmail.com