chalice

chalice I am not capable of spectacular personal holiness. I can hold the cup though, during Eucharist, and offer you the blood of Christ. I do not know what it means to attain the sort of set-apartness the bishop spoke of Sunday, but I do know the wren says something in her repetitive “ chee chee chee” that almost sounds like an blessing if I pay attention. And lifting the chalice to your lips, I recognized that look behind your eyes, the one of wanting and restlessness and fear--it id my look; did I leave it there for you to find? Or did we both happen to find it at the same moment (serendipitously)? What shapes are the shadows of the birch branches making across my table as I write? Are they spectral images or words from another tongue? If the tree was red, like the dogwood next to it, all aflame with Autumn, then I would say Pentecost--it means announcement and amen, arrival and approval. But no--these shadows disappear as I trace them, then reappear as something else. I know this though: the sun on my cheek is steady, and warms me to my bones, though by next week it will have given way to its weaker winter form. All things change, and of thine own unchanging have we known thee. If I walk this same path every day for a year, will a path be worn in my soul that is steady, reliable? Today the leaves are crunching under my feet; the sky is making such a display I wonder what all the boasting is about. But the air is calm, and it is the promise of safety that makes me know what is coming next must be close at hand: the upbraiding of the leaves, the stripping bare of the trees, the long cold nakedness of winter. Tell me your story again then, birch tree. When all your leaves have fallen--when your branches are stark bare. Will I be able to understand better then? Or will the meaning always be allusive? I would like to know why I feel the Autumn sun as human touch on my cheek, and the smell of leaves as homecoming. I would like to know why I find reassurance in the recitative song of the wren, and in the expansiveness of the nearly cloudless sky. I do know this: I feel gifted. Though they are not exclusively for me, because I am wanting, they are mine for taking. Like the bread and wine; and what do I need to know about the giver except his goodness? Maybe more will come, walking this same path every day. In time. Or maybe not. But for today, receiving is enough.