Up here north, in verdant friend Vermont,
as today’s dawn seeped in,
I walked our grassy, backyard labyrinth,
as mowed upon our mound.
Deep thanks rose up—and now recur—
for her who fashioned such a sacramental space,
and shares this brickless, green cathedral
(and that of her life) each day with me.
When the labyrinth path led me to center, I first faced South,
then West and North. But when I came to East
I was brought to peace with unexpected speed
(with the help, to be sure, of the warmth and light
of that early, upping sun.)
And I was brought as well to prayer.
I knew it first—and most—
as a sense and feeling within my body.
And then it translated itself from that enfleshed energy
into the realm of words and intent,
which my inner ear thought it heard to say:
“To You who birthed this All, I give thanks for all these gifts.
And more and more, I ask: Let me know Your realness.
Let me trust Your goodness. Let me sense Your purpose.
And let me join in Your creating by my partnered molding
of the clay of these raw materials You’ve placed at hand;
and thereby share in the shaping of these next steps and stages
of our further human growth and becoming.
And, most, let me learn love, even as I take You at Your word
that Love is what I already am, and always have been,
because Love is—You are—the ‘I AM’ Itself,”
the All in all, in Whose image I was made.
And still remain.
And will sustain.”
Anthony Acheson
Anthony Acheson is a retired minister ordained in the United Church of Christ (UCC). He was Pastor of the Greensboro UCC from 1999 to 2015. Some of this material has been adapted from his 2021 book of essays, “Beyond Denial.”He welcomes comment and conversation at [email protected] . Samples of his writing can be read at https://www.anthonyeacheson.com .
