You are blessing me.

At the end of this long road, after all these trials and living through woe, you are blessing me.

Is the road truly at its end? Will I not walk on tomorrow, and through tomorrow’s tomorrow? Will, later, such grace rain upon me?

Today, Lord, you bless me today. Let me rejoice in the space between morning and night.

(Letter #2,353)

The day is blank, I scarcely know how to begin to fill it.

While I am consumed with planning, dawn unfolds and you command the skies and creatures to commence their tune.

Am I to sing, too, Lord? Why thought I to be a conductor?

I will go where you point me.

(Letter #2,352)

I live apart with you.

When we are alone together, so many visions. May they persist, that I may see them through the dust of the day.

When I reenter the world, and encounter society, let me do your will.

(Letter #2,351)

Stacked wood has been knocked over in the night. Debris is spread here and there.

Upturned lawn chairs will not disturb my heart, O Lord. The ground is solid, the grass grows, the sun shines.

Let me see through what used to vex me, dear Friend.

(Letter #2,350)

The day is early; I hear birdsong. Is it already too late to seek you? Woe cascades upon woe in my thoughts and I scarcely noticed the scent of the earth.

Try as I might, as a race to be the dawn, I cannot outrun these vexations.

Could it be that the way to peace is to quit running?

Let me unclench my jaw, Lord, and let me start now.

(Letter #2,349)

O to feel led. Let it be so.

I am blind, adrift, crushed by self-reliance.

Pull me along your way, Lord.

(Letter #2,348)

Self-pity drives me to seek rescue from the most trivial of days. What may befall me? A neighbor will visit. An errand must be run. These are the things from which I shrink.

You, Providence, will supply. Will it be in the form of relief, or of energy to meet conditions?

The sun rises, Lord. I will greet it.

(Letter #2,347)

Is peace the goal or the means to draw nearer to you?

In this Alpine meadow, far from the din of the village square, my heart relaxes and I feel you next to me.

Would the crowded market be equally worthy as the placid lakeshore, if my ears were trained to hear you even there?

I wait and pray for conditions to change that I may be with you. I dared not think that, all along, you were inviting me to change to meet conditions.

Let me feel your presence even in chaos, Lord.

(Letter #2,346)

Day by day and year by year, I have become rooted into earth. The wind bends me but I remain.

Let the songbirds come and sit singing on my branches; let my neighbors find shelter underneath.

Let them build a swing upon me and laugh together, Lord. How better to pass the day than to listen?

Your sentry, unseen.

(Letter #2,345)

My lips say, “peace, peace.” What does my life say?

Do I bring peace or chaos with me?

Let me be a balm to my fellows, and heal the breaches around me.

If I am to bring peace, I must be it. Let me be peace.

(Letter #2,344)