Composed while out on a run this morning reflecting upon…
– Teaching our oldest to ride a bike
– Walter Brueggemann’s article, “The Company of the Unafraid: God’s peculiar hope offers a way to keep fear from overpowering us”” in the July 2019 edition of Sojourners magazine
– Krista Tippett’s conversation with Elizabeth Alexander and the power of words that shimmer.

How unnerving it is
to move
through the world
in a new way.

Balance
must be learned
again
by the feet,
the eyes
the heart.

Breathing
must be
deep.
Attention
must be
fierce.
Risk
must be
chosen.

With hands
on the handlebars
and feet
moving to the
pedals,
I am learning
to trust
MF* Hope

Out there awaits
a world to
explore,
experience,
and expand
with my presence.

My legs know
it is
time.
It is
time
to move forward
at a new pace,
a different rhythm.

Out there,
MF Wholeness
calls me forth.

Here,
MF Hope
births courage.

Within me,
MF Voice and Compass
whispers in my ear,
“Yes!
Ride!
That’s it!
You’ve got this.”

I am bound
for the boundless wild
that is beyond
me.

I am marked,
before I even set forth,
by MF Hope,
in whose image
I am boundless
in my becoming.

*For this morning, the words that shimmered for me to represent God was Mother-Father, MF for short. If you want to pray more intensely, perhaps another popular translation of MF will do just fine.