This poem comes from work in my contemplative prayer group. We allow ourselves to “see” each other in a time of silence during an interlude in our prayers together. We allow our imaginations and our spiritual core to evoke and bring images of each other as expressions on the journey. Then we share these images with each other. What the images mean often becomes something to ponder and pray about for each of our group members, or sometimes, the group member identifies what the Spirit is saying through the image. Perhaps you will find something for you in these prayer pictures. We always say, “ when I held you in my heart space, I saw…” When you hold others in your heart space, what do you see?
Seeing you in the heart of God
I see you standing outside,
the night a black cloth in the cardinal directions;
you take a knife and cut the sky
while hundreds of stars fall like snow.
I see you standing in a creek;
you are drinking from a golden cup
and the tail of your shirt is wet.
Around you the salmon are running,
the water glistening as they leap.
I see you standing in the desert;
the sand is hot and shiny and you are singing.
You sing and Old Turtle, the great tortoise, comes to speak to you.
Then, you turn, and you, too, have a shell
of the world on your back.
I see you on a boat in a calm bay.
You dive off the deck beneath the grey waves
and when you surface, you are holding the bejeweled cross
from a shipwrecked vessel under the sea.
I see you above and below,
the one embraced
and held in the heart of God,
who is in the sky, the river, the sand and the sea.
I see you as you see me.
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