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Invitation to Poetry: Return to me with your whole heart

Joy

Welcome to Poetry Party #76!

button-poetryI select an image (*photo above by PhotoJoy Photography) and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it in the comments section below or join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there.

Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog (if you have one), Facebook, or Twitter, and encourage others to come join the party!  (If you repost the photo, please make sure to include the credit link below it and link back to this post inviting others to join us).

We began this month with a  Community Lectio Divina practice with wisdom from the prophet Joel and followed up with our Photo Party on the same theme. (You are most welcome to still participate).  We continue this theme in our Poetry Party this month.

The text with which we are praying this month is read every year on Ash Wednesday. “Return to me with your whole heart” are a powerful words to begin the sacred season of Lent. What if we were to imagine Lent as less about sacrifice, and more about making the great return to God. The photo above, shared by fellow monk in the world Joylynn Graham at this month’s Photo Party, shimmers with the sacredness of our great and final return to God. Holding this reality in our awareness can offer us the impetus to turn back to the Source in our lives moment by moment. The ancient monks knew that the awareness of our death, smudged on our foreheads at Ash Wednesday, has the effect of deepening our appreciation for life.

You can post your poem either in the comment section below*or you can join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group (with more than 1300 members!) and post there.

*Note: If this is your first time posting, or includes a link, your comment will need to be moderated before it appears. This is to prevent spam and should be approved within 24 hours.

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45 Responses

  1. Return to me with your whole heart …

    The Lord said:
    …Yes, I’m sending you out. It’s time you earn your keep. It’s time to experience humanity so you can freely choose to love Me.

    I responded:
    …But it’s cold here. I’m screaming for you as I’m being pushed out of this womb.

    Years later I said:
    …Earthly time has passed since I’ve been with you Lord. I can’t see Your face. I
    can’t hear Your voice. There’s only this din of words swirling around me. Only
    other humans telling me what to do; what to think; what side of the line to be on;
    who is right; who is worthy; survival of the fittest; if you help others you won’t have
    enough for yourself. They’re so strong, Lord! It’s so much easier to think like them.
    This mob mentality makes me feel accepted as part of the group. Yet ..somehow I
    know surely there’s more to life than this.

    …Wait! I hear something! It’s like a drumbeat in the middle of my chest, blocking
    out all the noise, the voices. Somehow it makes me calm and at peace. It warms
    me and makes me feel loved – makes me want to love others. Being still I can
    just make out the words: “Return to me with your whole heart.” It’s You, isn’t it
    Lord. I see both sides now. I’m ready to choose. I choose You. With my whole
    whole heart, I return to You Lord.

  2. The Land Beyond the Dawn

    Arise
    take my hand and
    fly with me
    to the land beyond the dawn

    Tangerine sky glows on
    our spirit bodies
    as we soar
    into lavender cloud drifts
    into the translucent blue
    into this resurrection land
    this land of luminous love

    Our spirit eyes fill with
    sparkling joy tears,
    our spirit hearts ache
    with pure delight
    as we flow through
    the gates of gold
    into the land where
    the incandescent faces
    of our many loves glow
    as we rush into
    their embraces in
    The Land Beyond the Dawn

    1. The opening line is such a wide open invitation. I love “The Land Beyond the Dawn” which causes me to pause and imagine so much. Thank you for the gift of your words.

  3. The Light
    is blinding
    but maybe that’s
    the point.

    The Light
    beckons me
    ‘Return to God
    come home
    come whole.’

    Each day
    I return
    step by small step
    and maybe that’s
    the point.

    Amen
    God says.
    Amen
    I say.
    ‘So be it Lord
    I come.’

  4. I’ve never written a poem before.

    RETURN TO ME WITH YOUR HEART WHOLE

    I came to be with fire and passion
    To bravely live these precious lessons
    You walk with me, but as thy child
    I must learn to speak……

    What use of painful discovery
    If treasures are not revealed
    Return to me with your heart whole
    And I will give you peace.

  5. One moment
    Every dawn
    comes a resurrection
    where tombstones fade into fragile ghosts
    where trees reach into feathery dreams
    and only the heaven of sun-struck sky
    is real.

    1. Lovely. I kept looking at that star-pointed sun reaching from the horizon. Your poem paints the picture! Thanks for sharing.

  6. Going Home.

    These headstones,
    like doors transparent
    atop empty graves
    so ghostly if you are afraid.

    At my mother’s burial
    autumn leaves so joyful
    carefree
    frolicked and tumbled
    around her grave.

    Why could I not cry
    while everybody sobbed.
    This is so wrong, no tears.
    But so right the rock, faith
    a knowing solid in my heart
    held me while I held
    my little sister.

    Leaves fall happily
    to the ground.
    Everything will return
    I imagined her green eyes
    twinkling in God’s radiant light.

    1. Very important poem … “faith a knowing solid in my heart” I like the strength of that line very much! Blessings.

      1. Thank you, Joy. You live up to your lovely name, giving joy to a poet of wayward lines today.

  7. Return to Me with Your Whole Heart

    My son moves across country in a week
    First time to leave home for a distant dream
    Friends excited at this new season
    It feels like sadness, a death to me

    He belongs to God
    I made that promise before his birth
    I release my only son to You
    As you will hold him in Your tender care

    The sun sets in his home here
    Burying the past
    To rise again in shining glory
    As endings lead to beginnings

    1. Beautiful heartfelt poem during a tender time. Be proud of your ability to let him fly! Blessings.

  8. To ash and stone we will return
    to ash and stone
    In darkened ashes, memories,
    of flesh and bone
    of sea and seed and wing and salt and root and home
    To flesh and bone we will return
    to flesh and bone

  9. “return to me with your whole heart”

    open ~ open ~ rest
    listening to heart whispers
    space for being now

    with gratitude ~