You brought me through harrowing battles, across broken lands, through storm and calamity to this place. What great deeds await me? What is the grand purpose for which you saved your child and servant?

I was needed to repair the stool, upon which will sit a worker, who will fashion a box, to hold another family’s recipes.

Yea, thus saved as a gear in the machinery of the world. Yea, thus saved for greatness.

You shine forth from the ordinary. Let me exalt this simple labor, Lord.

(Letter #2,512)

Knock. Enter.

Who knocks? Who enters?

Must I draw near to you, for you to come to me? Or, sitting in my chamber, might I hear you at the door, a surprise in my reverie?

Do you wait for an invitation? An entreaty?

O Lord, you burst in upon me without warning! Today is bright sun on a clear plain.

Lord, I give thanks for all these paths to you.

(Letter #2,511)

A ratchet in my chest, turning tighter, tighter. How can I yet breathe?

A cistern filled drop by drop with cool water reclaimed from dew. Very soon there is no more reason to thirst.

A pile of wealth, grown trinket by trinket. Midas would be agog.

Lord, my day, my life is filled with small acts that add one to the other. Let me not therefore slowly yet inexorably imprison myself.

Let me create pools of cool water and heaps of treasure.

(Letter #2,510)

Yesterday I was a candle, blown out by wind. No light nor warmth escaped me.

Today, when I am lit, will I not burn? Dark will come early yet I will flicker in the window, beckoning the way to visit.

Joy at reunion, made sweeter by yesterday’s failure.

Thank you, Lord, for this day.

(Letter #2,509)