Here on the ground
the days are still painted
with enough grace
to fill any heart that’s present
We may not be flying
in the way we sense we someday will,
but we can feel high
in the confluence of skill and opportunity,
of character and connection,
of sun and scent and wind
and the myriad gifts of the hour.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 8, 2018
Let me stay here
in the soft bubbles
of easy laughter
where everything is forgiven
because no harm was ever done
because how could it be?
—Given that we always
have been beloved,
given that we always have walked
in the garden of belonging,
always have owned
the grace to move
softly and deeply
through the landscapes of our lives.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 27, 2018
We go through the times
of these deep colors,
we are soaked through
in these dark tones,
we see the sediment suspended
in slow-moving oceans,
we feel the sifting settling
and its countering stir
There are no lines
to trace around these motions,
there is no story
that we can tell,
there is no waiting
that gains us information —
we find our meaning
in moving ever forward,
chiming our presence
into the days.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 25, 2017
This is a time of power,
this is a time of jubilee
from all your faults —
you don’t need to repeat them
anymore. You don’t need to
pay homage to your past mistakes
by making them once more again today
This is a time of freedom
and the sweet release that comes
from simple pure repentance
and from standing up again
in the resultant clarity
of who you really are,
to make amends
in a way that really heals,
to set things right
from this new place of strength.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 9, 2017
Don’t worry —
this is not a place
where you can go wrong,
this is not a test, and not a contest.
In your design, you’re given
everything you need to thrive —
this is your life
and you its only master
Don’t worry —
that which you most deeply wish
won’t be denied, though it may seem so,
many times along the way.
Your desire is part of who you are
and its fulfillment
is in your destiny,
cut, as it is,
from the same rock,
bound, as it is,
in your same Life.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 20, 2017
My facile answers have turned sour,
my tissue-paper wings
discolored and then melted in the rain,
sad framework of support now holding nothing
I should recognize this path by now —
enough times I’ve skipped blithely down it
pretending not to see the looming overcast
or how bravado sidled in
to prop up failing confidence,
coming to this place —
cold lumps of despair,
nowhere to fall to
Slim threads of light return
as I remember
this is no task for me
to shoulder on my own
Given a moment of stillness,
grace returns,
an element I never could concoct,
a lifeline I can hold to.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 4, 2017
Well, who wouldn’t delight
in the law of Life, in the law of light?
Who doesn’t thrill
with the intricacy of every interlocking need,
each interlacing gift?
Who wouldn’t be amazed
at how perfectly
all these separate entities
flock and soar together,
turn and breathe as one?
From here comes the courage
to leave behind the old story,
that’s based on conflict
and has to have an enemy
and makes its horrid bargains
and insists on being right
There’s plenty of evidence
for the goodness of everything.
It may not make a good story,
but it makes a good life.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 28, 2017
One day you find yourself held
in the shine that lets you
be as you envisioned you could be,
suddenly strong enough to wield
the needed tools, precision locked in,
clarity of mind
In a rush, you are riding a wave —
the power of you, bearing you up,
the surge of joy, to be so carried
as if it were a force outside yourself
delivering this lift
You will seek this shine again.
You will look for places
where it might happen,
seek out the people
who witnessed it with you,
come back to tasks which,
in doing them, you felt it —
It may not be easy to find,
but knowing it’s there,
you’ll keep looking.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 23, 2017
I heard without a doubt
(my Creator told me
clear as the blue shine on the floor
stretching to the boundaries
of all my being)
I heard without a doubt
that at the very bottom of my tears
there was nothing there but goodness
Why then, was I still afraid?
Did I still believe my life rolled out
in some realm other than
the one my Maker owned?
Did I think I might be comforted
but not healed? Saved but left alone?
Surely (my Creator told me
this morning as I watched the tiny
crescent moon start its traverse
across the brightening sky)
Surely you couldn’t think
I’d leave you in a realm I didn’t govern!
Surely you can feel: It’s not
that I deliver you from evil
so much as that my all-present goodness
always governs all events —
Yours, too. Yourself, your family
and every fact unfolding in this day.
And that’s why, in my goodness,
you don’t have to be afraid.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 16, 2017
Evening creeps, almost unseen,
into the room,
today’s triumphs soften
and its brilliance cools
It’s been an unassuming day,
but graced with a sense of rightness,
bathed in holy light,
rinsed in the comfort
of dawning goodness,
everything as it belongs
People come back from their festivals
where they went, hoping to be changed,
and maybe they are,
and maybe from here
we’ll amazingly
find ourselves uniting
in the dignity of every blessed day.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 25, 2017