Dear God, day by day, I seek you. I beg you to come to me, to sit beside me, to hold my hand, to lay yourself over me and protect me. Such yearning for support and safety.

Yet I know, Lord, in the quiet morning of reflection, this truth: you are within me.

This seeking and yearning is misplaced, for you are already here. Indeed, you hide from me, there in the last place I look. I search all around for evidence and only seldom do I look inside. But that is where you are.

To see you as an outside force, visiting and saving, supporting and loving – even as I express devotion, this diminishes you into an outside agency. No.

You are in me.

Lord, let me grasp all the implications of this. Let me see how instantly this erases every fear and trivializes every goal.

Let me quit looking for you under rocks and behind curtains, O Lord. Let me see you, here, inside me. Let me allow your warming love to course through my limbs. Let me unleash gratitude for your constant inner presence.

(Letter #1298)

Dear God, my thinking fills so quickly with my own preoccupations. I shut myself away to seek you, yet within moments I cease listening for your voice. My attention turns instead to my hopes and fears of the day.

Upend my thinking, Lord! I have worn a groove, pacing back and forth in my own self-regard. Sweep in like a storm, fix my attention upon my relationship with you. Let me hold onto you desperately.

In times of quiet, dependence on you appears optional. Let me not be so listless. Drive me to you. Force me.

Lord, take away my illusion of choice.

(Letter #1297)

Dear God, I awaken. I anticipate the day. I do so imperfectly. Shadowy figures loom around me, milling and murmuring. What will happen? What will I do? What will befall me? Who will visit?

Lord, this world is not the world.

I have built a fantasy peopled with cartoons drawn of mist. My mind casts forward through the day and nothing is clear, all is dim, yet my feelings in anticipation are vivid and present. I fear loosely imagined conflict. I equally look forward to undefined happiness. Sitting alone in my rooms, my world consists of feelings, none of which are anchored in reality.

Lord, tether me. Root me in this present moment. It is all the world I have.

Let me stand and walk to meet all comers, greeting them with a smile and good cheer.

(Letter #1296)

Dear God, let me open myself to your unsparing gaze. Let me seek your bright sunlight, throwing open the secret cupboards, overturning the pieces of clutter, peeling back the carpets. You have removed the largest and most obvious obstacles. I have welcomed this.

At a glance my rooms appear in order. But rot remains. Dim corners that have escaped notice. Disordered objects. Termites chew the flooring. I have scarcely noticed some of these shortcomings; others I have known of yet ignored for another day.

These defects melt away under your gaze, leaving fresh, pink skin, bright woodwork, orderly stacks.

Why, Lord, do I hide my weaknesses under gilding? The quickened life that grows under your fond look stiffens my spine and gives my body structure. Yet I resist wellness, hiding the softest parts from you.

Today, Lord, let me turn all my surfaces to the sun. Warm my limbs. You shine on the strong and the weak. Shine on me too, O Lord.

(Letter #1295)