When my woes and agitation lift, and calm descends, is this peace? Or is peace a visitor who can come and go?

Is peace the absence of trouble? Trouble the absence of peace?

Lord, this garden needs tending. Let my work be orderly, and fashion peaceful growth.

(Letter #2,209)

Where will you visit me? Here in the quiet hours? Or when I am busy, overwhelmed?

O Lord, let me be ready to pass along your grace. I do not appoint the hour of your arrival.

(Letter #2,208)

I scurry from job to job, even before my feet move. I am planning a furtive day, as if idleness is guilt.

Do you ask us to be dynamos, performing feats? Who treats their children thus?

Lord, let me sit by this quiet stream and see it for what it is.

(Letter #2,207)

I see no farther ahead then today’s nightfall. Were I to see into tomorrow, and achieve my desire, I would tremble at what awaits me.

How else to live, then, else as if I expire at day’s end?

Let me, Lord, run headlong into the wall. You will open the way and tomorrow I will be a baby reborn.

(Letter #2,206)