The following is a short spiritual exercise that will help you engage a little deeper with God.
Take a couple of deep breaths and in prayer, invite Jesus into this time. Begin reading the poem below entitled “Cracks” by David Bookless. This first reading is to help you get a sense of the entire piece.
Now, read the poem again but this time slowly and meditatively. Read it line-by-line pausing when a word or phrase – seems to resonate with you.
When a word or phrase resonates with you, pause and hold it.
What emotions are you feeling?
What things come to mind?
Ask God where and how He is in this for you.
Don’t rush through the tough stuff – trust God is with you and has something for you.
When the time seems right, continue reading, pausing again on the words and phrases that seem to jump out at you.
Hold them.
Offer them to God – What emotions are you feeling?
What comes to mind?
Ask God where and how He is in this for you.
When you come to the end of the poem, prayerfully sit quietly and ask the Holy Spirit to hi-light any thoughts, situations or emotions that the Spirit might want to meet you in and simply receive.
- You may want to journal your thoughts feelings and impression of what the Spirit may be saying and doing in you.
- You may want to share these thoughts with a good friend or spiritual director.
- Is there anything you feel like you may need to act on?
- Stuck? If you get stuck in strong emotions and are having difficulty processing them, don’t be afraid to visit with a trained therapist.
- You may want to make use of the streaming audio player from Soaking.net.
- Remember, the hallmark of the Kingdom of God is love – the Father will never come shaming or condemning. God comes in perfect love, and this will yield peace and rest.
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Cracks
There are cracks in my world;
I noticed them one day and now they are everywhere. Sinister, hairline cracks that
Start and finish out of sight,
Cracks that grow and gape
and laugh at my certainties.
My world has been declared unsafe.
I have tried to paper them over,
paint them out,
shift the furniture to hide them
… but they always return …
Cracks that hang like question-marks in my mind.
But now I begin to think…….
Why do the cracks appear?
From where do they come?
They have made my room unsafe
… but they have thrown it open to new horizons, … drawn back curtains
… raised long-closed shutters.
One day I looked, and a crack had become a window to a larger world beyond;
step through it said
… what have you to fear?
Do you wish to stay in your crumbling room?
And then I remembered a childhood dream Watching the egg of some exotic bird;
oval and perfect spotted blue and cream In wished to hold that egg
and keep it on a shelf …
but as I watched it …
cracks appeared;
Tiny fissures spread like zigzag ripples.
It broke in two
and life struggled to its feet, Wet and weak, and blinking at the world.
Without the cracks, that egg could
hold no more than rotting, stagnant death.
Without its cracks my world would be
no more than a room without a view;
Cracks may be uncomfortable, disturbing gaps … but could it be I need them?
Do you believe in cracks?
Because I keep searching for God in the room and find He is hiding in
the cracks.
– Dave Bookless, God Doesn’t Do Waste © 1990