LORD, my whole heart thanks You. I can’t begin to count Your wonderful deeds. How glad I am in You! Oh, how I rejoice! Even my enemies repent in Your presence. You maintain me and all I stand for – the righteous rulings You bring. Nations will receive Your rebuke, and people will perish in […]
How far above politics You are, O Lord – high above the low-slung mud and lack of love shown for others, including our own country. Let us be a nation who dwells in You. Let Your justice reign! Let Your regard for every person be the law by which we guard ourselves from error. Bind […]
Forgive me, Lord, for praising me the show-off, the classy clown, the all-star player, the sassy comeback, the all-A everything, who sometimes forgets that praise belongs to You. Forgive me, Heavenly Father-Mother, for seeking adulation from others, for people-pleasing then performing poorly because I didn’t follow the script – the Holy Scriptures You gave. Save […]
In the beginning God created time with a moon clock and space with the compass of the sun. After that cosmic moment, everything changed! Oceans ebbed and flowed. Plants grew edible. People pulsated as though made of music, made of stardust. Days passed in beauty, resting at week’s end, and sometimes we remembered praise as […]
Praise the Maestro of Heavenly Music Who brings the most unlikely instruments into accord around the One Pure Note of Christ. May the melody of the Lord surround us with such power that shouts of terror go mute among us. Praise the Almighty God, our Great Conductor for orchestrating every task and aspect of our […]
Here I am, Lord, ready to listen, ready to pray, ready to watch You and be amazed, ready to thank You and give You praise. Mary Harwell Sayler, © 2016
Praise Christ our Purifier Who filters the spite from our souls and decontaminates our spirits, Who cleanses us from all dross and removes anything ill or gross from our memories and old ways of doing things. Christ we praise for bathing us with His Blood on His cross of wood, cleansing us from sin, and […]
I Recognize You, Lord When we walk together, discussing scripture as though we’re on the Emmaus Road. I recognize You in the breaking of communal bread at communion, family suppers, and potluck dinners when we talk of You around the table. Your peace, I recognize within – and without as trouble stirs when I forgot […]
My God, my God, why have You forsaken Your life for mine? Why are You so far from helping Your own holiness by taking on my sins? You magnetized crowds with Your love and prayers and healing touch, only to draw sin from us – like a magnet cast in iron nails that tear away […]
Beside my desk, seashells Show evidence of life outgrowing the old self and discarding hard protective layers that once encompassed vulnerabilities. Praise the Lord! You have risen from the grave condition of mankind and found Yourself, buoyed in the Spirit but anchored in us, Your blessed Body on earth. © 2016, Mary Harwell Sayler
After Shots sonnet broken by real tragedy in the theater Again and again, we shoot strong words of blame, shaming God alone when things go wrong that we have done with little thought of our free will to pray for this sad day to be redeemed of sorrow, fears, and ills that seem unceasing. Yet […]
Bravado from Exodus 2 What a beautiful baby brother you have to hide among the reeds along the river where you’ve seen Pharaoh’s daughter bathe, splashing water against her kind kohl-lined eyes. You’ve noticed her before, haven’t you, Miriam, as you’ve gone outdoors to play? Did you watch her as you gathered papyrus reeds to […]
The Competition from Genesis 29-35 I. Listen, Judah, and try to understand: for seven years, Jacob served his Uncle Laban for his cousin Rachel’s hand and thought of no one else. It was her dark hair he felt against his cheek, her lips and body shaped to his, and the nape of her neck cradled […]
Mark Five: Red Letter Edition Come out, come out wherever you are! What is your name? Go home to your friends and tell them the things – the merciful things – the Lord has done. Who touched My clothes? You’ve touched the Son! Now go, touched in peace. You have been healed. You have been […]
Having a Word with Judah Someone must have told you stories of your great- grandfather, Abram, and your great-grandmother, Sarai – how they had domestic troubles, struggling to amend the word they’d heard. Surely someone called them foolish to be so old and childless yet still plotting, childlike toward a milk-and-honey life. Someone must have […]
Speaking Other Language What do we know of the cool brook’s rising slowly from its rock-source: trickling, winding, fading among the lilied grasses then suddenly splitting the tomb of another field where cows laze in live-oak shade, waiting good-naturedly for just such a miracle to happen? Mary Harwell Sayler
Haiku Wrought From Rubble Purified by fire, beaten into submission, shaped for service: Gold! Mary Harwell Sayler
The Funeral begins with the birth-date of skin, color, gender, bruising caused by delivery into your particular place or family. No one knows what you now feel. No relative totally relates. No medical force utterly understands the length of your life, your foot, your hand, or other wonderments with […]
Heavy Laden They’ve ruined me! Their weighty words assign work, work, work to my joy. How can I let go this lack of blessing? I stick out my neck, O Lord, for your yoke. Mary Harwell Sayler
Broken House Today I am convinced that everything I do has little value, Lord, to You, to others, or myself. A vase of many flaws, atop a shelf, just waiting: I speak, but no one hears the sound, and all around the silence of myself – berating – I wonder what will make me real? […]
On Calling Out and Hoping God Will Answer Love breaks open like a beak – half up, half down : and from the wings of a throat erupts a cry. Mary Harwell Sayler
Disgracing Dinah from Genesis 34 prior to the law of “an eye for an eye” Dinah’s weeping, Judah. Dinah’s weeping. Do you hear? Does she fear the horror that will happen when her big brothers hear of the ill-fated love fallen upon her as forcibly as the trial […]
Reading The Will Isaiah 58 From the midst of yourselves, pull out oppression. From the center of yourselves, remove falsehood and cruel speech. Feed the hungry, yes, but find some way to satisfy the complaints of the afflicted – those most likely bothered by what you do not do. Then light shall lift you from […]
To the Icon of the Virgin of Vladimir Your eyes bear the world’s incredible sadness, your lower lids descending into cups that cannot contain your grief. Your mouth depicts the close touch of your Son’s cheek – only a newborn now but shown as a miniature man already ready to comfort. Did you sense this? […]
