The Measure of Faith
Seek.
Do not seek if you will not ask
do not ask if you will not work.
There is an order:
one is not all and all are not one
Each stands alone and all together.
Seek God in the book
where words are sharp as stones.
Seek Him in the silence
where thoughts turn molten in the heat of solitude.
Seek Him in your labor
where hands are bound to others
in the family bound to you by bone and breath
and in the rhythm of the ordinary.
Ask.
The Spirit’s hands are on our lips.
Who are we to ask the way?
And yet
who are we if we do not ask?
We do not know what pleases Him
how to speak His language of water and wind.
But the Spirit knows and speaks for us.
So pray; with urgency with certainty with want.
Pray for what you understand
and for what lies beyond you.
The Spirit stands between your words and their fulfillment
filling the gap that makes prayer whole.
Work.
It is the way of the Son.
Where there are cold bones, cover them.
Where hunger gnaws, break bread and pass it.
Where shadows live, let light enter.
Bind the wound and lift the weak.
The world aches for hands that will meet it with kindness
for the weight of mercy
for the leaven of good works that swell what is barren.
His was the labor; ours the continuation
the lifting of His burden.
Salt.
Not enough and there is blandness
too much and there is ruin.
And yet without it all decays.
We are the salt
our presence is a measure in the earth’s fragile dough.
The world bends to the weight we give it
the flavor we bring
to season or spoil.
A careful pinch never a fistful.
Balance in all things:
seek as if you will never ask
ask as if you will never work
work as if there were nothing else.
