You speak to me in murmurs and colors. The world I see and touch is not the one I walk through with you. The treasures in my pockets are so ordinary when looked at in daylight.

Invisible, unheard, yet here you are with me as we sit. Oh my friend, thank you for the gifts you place whole in my clay jars.

When you are here with me, my breathing clears, slows, and my chest loosens. Is there some other gift one might wish for beyond this?

(Letter #1,856)

I doubt. My rope stretched to the limit, I hope for rescue. I call out for your help, Lord, begging. This hope, masquerading as faith, holds the seeds of my doubt. What if you do not answer? What if I fall?

Where is sure confidence, Lord? Where indeed is gratitude?

O God, grow my faith. Let me give thanks for the wasteland over which I dangle.

(Letter #1,855)

My feet wind their way through darkness. I have seen this path and it is familiar. Now I imagine beasts crowding in, threatening. These fears I walk with, Lord, I know they are illusion. There are no beasts, and no darkness.

It is daylight. I need but open my eyes.

As I walk in self-imposed blindness, what of my fellows? Others walk with me – eyes more tightly closed, fears more looming. Let me lead one or two by the hand, let my singing voice guide others.

Lord, to be your walker, I will need to open my eyes. Make me willing.

(Letter #1,854)

We are distant. It is I who have wandered, an errant creature. I awaken, I come to myself, in an empty field, blinking.

How did I arrive here, Lord? When did I leave your pathway, how do I return?

O come to me, dear God, though it is I who have strayed. I am a lost sheep.

(Letter #1,853)

Where are you? I face what is beyond my doorstep alone, trembling at the vast plain. How will I survive this harsh place, with its beating sun and dry springs?

Remembered voices drift through my thinking: I am loved. I am well able. There is a plan. Now these are faint echoes.

Lord, I have been here before, felt the fear, the worry, the deflation. It passed. You returned.

O let this happen again. Return to me, dear Lord.

(Letter #1,852)

An obstinate mule, I will not walk in the direction you urge. I wait at the top of the path, browsing in grass, sure I know the way I would wish to move.

Grant me willingness to walk your way. Grant me willingness to endure harsh weather and bitter foes, to experience lack and worry.

Dismantle my stubbornness, dear Lord. It leaves me where the grass is more and more sparse.

(Letter #1.851)

Even the diamond is a pebble among others. Let me be one of many today: one stone in the wall of a simple hut. With my brothers and sisters, let me keep out the wind.

(Letter #1,850)

What good are these woes I drag with me through the day, this bag of stones? They slow my walk and tire my back. And yet I grip them so tightly.

O how I try to drop them, and no sooner have I let go than the bag reappears. What is in it? Illusion. The rocks are dry leaves, easily borne.

Each rock, which I thought was its own calamity, is but mist.

Lord, let me truly look at what I carry.

(Letter #1,849)

My feet walk, unfelt. My hands grasp, unnoticed. My attention is on the horizon and the storms gathering over the hills. What am I to encounter?

The weather is set to turn harsh.

Yet here, the pathway turns upon itself and I walk through patches where it is uneven. I must watch my feet if I am not to trip. I must grasp handholds.

Soon enough, the way leads to another dwelling where my help is needed. While I am in aid, the storm comes and goes.

Walking later, this time toward home, I note that I never approached those mountains.

Lord, let me pay mind to my feet and hands, here and now.

(Letter #1,848)