3 Poems to Ponder on a Rainy Sunday

I attended a week long Spirituality and Art retreat at St. Meinrad's Monastery in St. Meinrad, Indiana, during the summer of 2010. I was looking back over the entries I made in my journal that summer and reaquainted myself with some of the riches I discovered during that week. Here are a few of the treasures. Enjoy!




The Trouble with Epiphanies
by John L'Heureux

Christ came into my room and stood there
and I was bored to death.
I had work to do.
I wouldn't mind if he'd been crippled or something
-I do well with cripples-
but he just stood there, all face
and with that damned guitar.
I didn't ask him to sit down,
He'd have stayed all day.
Let's be honest.
You can be crucified just so often-
Then you've had it.
I mean you're useless; no good to God,
Let alone anyone else.
So I said to him after a while,
Well, what's up? What do you want?
And he laughed, stupid,
Said he was just passing by
And thought he'd say hello.
Great, I said. Hello.
So he left.
And I was so mad
I couldn't even listen to the radio.
I went and got some coffee.
The trouble with Christ is
He always comes at the wrong time.




"You must learn one thing,
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and
the sweet confinement of your aloneness
to learn anyone or anything that does not bring you alive
is too small for you."
from "Sweet Darkness" by David Whyte






The Well of Grief
by David Whyte

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief
turning downward through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe,
will never know the source
from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,
nor find in the darkness glimmering,
the small round coins
thrown by those who wished for something else."