The answers come. I know what I must do. Yet I resist and delay.

Lord, I ask and ask for my will to align with yours. Here now is my opportunity, and away I shy.

Let me abandon the shriveled skin of self and walk toward you, all pink and new growth.

Thy will, indeed let it be done.

(Letter #2,262)

If today I lift a great weight, or build a majestic wall, or heal some ill neighbor, let these things be only in alignment with your will. The weight, the wall, the healing are the same. How can I know which task you set for me has the most import?

Is it today that my destiny to is to arrive and bear fruit? Will I know it when it comes? Or will it be another moment like any, with some quotidian task in tow?

Let me approach all duties as if they were a mission for sacred healing, Lord. Any one of them might yet be.

(Letter #2,261)

My life, is it made up of the things I do, or the stew of thoughts that persist all across my waking hours? I retire at night having harmed none by deeds, yet judgment and wrath live in my heart.

Can I thus deem myself holy, that I acted not? Is the bar so low?

Lord, slow my pace and allow room for the holy to creep into these hours. Heal my thoughts, let me not be satisfied with simply the external world.

It is in my secret heart that I must be judged. Make me more worthy.

(Letter #2,260)

I pray only to make it through this day, like a pack animal without sense of direction. There are only today’s labors.

Is this what you created me for, Lord? Am I not fearfully and wonderfully made?

Let today’s string of moments build upon yesterday’s, and serve as foundation for tomorrow’s. Let my aims be as large as your creation, beyond mere survival and ease.

I live in a forest. Let me help grow it.

(Letter #2,259)

This is how you made me and laid out my path – though I be misshapen and weak. These vexations with which I live all my life, you are the one who made them a part of my days.

I crawl along the wasteland that you made, sun shining upon me as equally upon the king lounging in a nearby oasis.

Why is such a bleak vision? As your child, I am heir to these riches and have been in the shadows of palm fronds all along.

You deem me perfectly made, wherefore do I doubt your design? Let me see myself as you see me, Lord.

(Letter #2,258)

Shut away in my room, the day waits outside the door. I approach it as I would a garden or a field. It is my destination; I am not yet there but must travel to it from my resting place.

The world is already upon me, here while I rest on my cushion. There is no time of preparation, it is all time of action. I inhabit but one moment: now.

Lord, let me cease my futile hiding. The present always finds me.

(#2,257)

There is wood to stack, and yet I daydream. The floors need cleaning, yet I am still in bed.

Move me to industry, Lord, as you did before.

How did I travel so far from you? Come to me, bring me back to you.

(Letter #2,256)

A broad field, long brown grass from the fading winter. A stream winds through it, and a path. Thickets, thornbushes clump together all around.

You laid out the path and I ignored it, yet to what end?

I wander through aimlessly as if I have a secret purpose. The pathway lies disused, and I come away with bramble cuts and torn clothing.

Lord, what shall I learn? That I can withstand the pricks of resistance? That even in forbidding lands there is ease? That you have a plan for me?

Let me learn all your lessons, sweet friend.

(Letter #2,255)

You are inexorable: the tide, the wind, the root slowly upending the stone.

I pitifully pray that your will be done, as if my tinkling voice can change events.

Let me come into alignment with what is already to be.

Let the miracles I seek be changes in my own inner life. The world need not alter; yet shall I.

Yes I say, Lord, yes.

(Letter #2,254)

Is there a simpler way to move through the day? Let me seek it.

Is there a more loving way to live? Let me reach for it.

Is there a surer way to efface myself so the world shines more brightly? Let me choose it.

Even the hardest task can be joined simply, lovingly, humbly. Let this be my contribution.

(Letter #2,253)