iv.

 

Break these bonds, Lord,

for by them I make covenant with strangers,

Take possession whereby all resistance is torn asunder,

Penetrate the depths of who I am,

with the sacrament of your eternal moment,

open my thoughts to the mystery

by which my now is conjoined to your everlasting,

 

O beloved one, put your hand to the plow,

Now is the time to sow the seed,

You have entered into dialogue with your need,

and your inner life awakens to my voice,

Now is the hour to prepare

so as to build mansions in the service of devotion,

 

Now, right now, one step further, hasten to make one

and then a second, dare the third

until the rhythm of the journey takes hold,

Give instruction to your will to push

the prudent motion beyond comfort;

the risk of the one who has fallen in love,

 

When the fire is burning,

the time is ready to prepare the banquet,

Do not be fooled by the ingredients,

for you cannot yet taste the delights,

Now is the hour whose vitality is at the service

of something vaguely seen,

something that stands in the distance,

 

What are the traps that await me?

How can I fall?

 

It is not so much in falling that you condemned,

but rather in losing the desire to get back up;

forgetting to reapply your hand to the plow;

a heart dulled by the comforts of this world,

so as to scorn the fast;

a heart that forgets how to mourn,

that cannot weep nor lament the snares of sin,

Damnation begins by forgetting to gaze upon my mercy,

and thus be inspired to repent,

that art of daily conversion.

 

Let yourself die, a thousand little deaths,

Rise, a thousand little resurrections,

 

Lord, teach me to make covenant with courage,

that he might instruct me in this great quest,

Together, let us make haste to put out

into the open country,

Let us dare the voyage of the boundless more

of those silent landscapes,

The interiority of that foreign land

where the Spirit populates the darkness with His fullness,

bursting out of the seams of language,

Let me dare to enter the land

beyond the grasp of language, the place of limitless

encounter.