A Winter Wonderland Psalm by Ed Hayes

This very cold, very prolonged Winter is not only something that is making life difficult here in Minnesota, but is having an adverse effect on people throughout a great deal of the United States. When I got into my car this morning I can truthfully say that my transmission doth whineth greatly about the bitter cold, as does my joints. In Ed Hayes beautiful volume of prayers, Prayers For A Planetary Pilgrim, is this wonderful psalm he composed. I hope that it helps, at the very least, make the cold a bit more tolerable for those suffering from this bitter cold weather, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. One last note, let us keep in prayer all those who are homeless in this bitter cold and assist as best as we can, the human services that reach to these folks.

A WINTER WONDERLAND PSALM

The ancient psalmist plucked his strings and sang a sentence sprung from you: "Be still and know that I am God"

Be still, my soul, like a winter landscape which is wrapped in the white prayer shawl of silent snow fringed with icy threads.

Sit still, 0 my body, like an icy pond frozen at attention, at rest yet alert

Be still, my gypsy mind, from your whirling like a perpetual gyroscope, constantly restless, ever on the move.

Endlessly you rove on a nomadic quest, roaming the roads of my Egoland, visiting its likes and dislikes, a Disneyland of distorted discriminations. Ceaselessly you visit its sacred shrines of self-righteous beliefs and its numerous forts of fears.

Be still, my being, so that, like Lewis Carroll's Alice, you may, with grace, find the tiny, hidden doorway that leads to Wonderland.

Be still so that you can discover slowly, day by day, that God and you are one, to know in that Wonder-of-Wonderlands who you really are.

 

Edward Hays. Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim: A Personal Manual for Prayer and Ritual (Kindle Locations 1135-1140). Kindle Edition.