Tag Archives: spiritual growth

After a wet spring

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It’s a year of long grass –
seed heads at face height sometimes,
clover our feet disappear in,
visually soft, full of many colors
within the green

It’s a year of eager growth
encouraged by forgiveness  –
something within rising continually up,
touching the softness,
reaching into it

Everything has been washed clean.
We, too, can feel it,
we, too, discover flowers
that may not have bloomed
(at least not like this)
for many years.
We offer our fields as gift,
as mystery, as thanks.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 1, 2022

Tendrils

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A persuasion as delicate as
the scent of spring – the subtle catch
it has, on my hope, my longing –
would certainly be the thing
to lead with, the thing that would encourage you
to look up, look away
from rutted tracks, unthinking expectations

And see soft tendrils greening,
showing, by their reaching,
the existence of something we can’t see
but which they know is there
by the way the force within them
sends them hopeful and confident
to their source of nourishment  and strength.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 10, 2022

In Retrospect

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I guess there were beautiful, important things
about being head over heels in love
with myself

(Though, granted, at the time,
I didn’t recognize
I was the object of my own affections)

It was important, I expect,
to know myself as loving,
(thinking I was loving them)
but loving that which I imagined
other people saw in me

I’m coming to see now that there is more  –
more scope, more purpose for my love,
greater opportunity to lose itself in service
and find the sweet fruition of its work.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 13, 2021

Emerge Gently

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There’s a reason
to approach all progress
with a gentle grace

There’s a logic to the structure  –
though a building may rise high,
it never grows beyond the need
for its foundation

Though I gain a lofty view,
there’s no outgrowing kindness,
and the love that grounds me
must always be the first thing,
and must shine through
whatever I attain.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 22, 2021

Following

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This is not a process of grand arcs,
though grand arcs inform it,
this is the way light falls
on every mote, on every crumble
of the soil, the way it sifts
between the needles,
falls to earth in chinks among the shadows

I cannot accomplish it
in one great sweep —
I follow it along the moments,
let the light seep
into every patch of thought it can redeem,
understand it now and now and now
ever new again along my path.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2019

Rising

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It was never a matter
of us saving ourselves,
never a case where any one
could individually rise,
never a case where some could go higher
with others left behind

I see it now. My own rising
entails the rise of my esteem
for everyone I see.
The world is saved that way,
as we each see
the face of God in each other,
as we each witness
the glory of collective grace.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 18, 2019