Today in Meeting, I was quite upset about the SWAT team raids in St Paul, and wondered where Spirit takes us, perhaps especially when the experience of Spirit, at that time, is unpleasant. When ugly and horrible things happen like devastating hurricanes, genocide and the SWAT team raids, is this what God wants? Is this Spirit moving? I rose and shared, then sat down in pain and rather dazed. After a few minutes had passed, I opened my book of Wendell Berry poems to this:
The Want of Peace
All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contenments made
by men who have hd little:
the fisherman's silence
receiving the river's grace,
the gardener's musing on rows.
I lack the peace of simple things.
I am never wholly in place.
I find no peace or grace.
We sell the world to buy fire,
our way lighted by burning men,
and that has bent my mind
and made me think of darkness
and wish for the dumb life of roots.
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