I have been wandering a writing wilderness. My human dustiness has fogged my brain and smudged my creative vision for many months now.<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago I experienced an unexpected stirring of my imagination. Some friends and I were gathered together near a park in my city. A wonderful water feature, a fountain with a pool, was within sight. One of my friends offered an aside about the fountain, a bit of wisdom she carries with her from her mother. “To steal coins from the fountain is to steal someone else’s wish.”<\/p>\n
I didn’t think too much about her comment at the time. It resurfaced later for me during a church book study. My study group is reading Amy Jill-Levine’s book, Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week.\u00a0<\/em> She devotes a chapter in that book to the story we often refer to as “the widow’s mite” (Luke 21 and Mark 12). A powerful feature of this story emerges in the way Jesus asks the disciples to see the widow\u00a0and<\/em> not look away.<\/p>\n The ancient story is infused with radical generosity and hospitality. It calls us to see and acknowledge the woman who gives what she has. The story also calls us to treat her with dignity and honor her worth in a soul-depleting society.<\/p>\n Reading this story through the lenses of Holy Week, as Jill-Levine does, and then hearing my friend’s inherited proverb about coins in a fountain lulled me out of my writing wilderness. Reading and hearing from a different perspective also nudged me to think anew about our rituals of giving and<\/em> receiving what is given within our worship and communal contexts. We all have gifts to share as well as wisdom to receive as we continue to grow together into what it means to be God’s Beloved Community.<\/p>\n I offer this desert-dusty poem as one outcome of my reflection on “the widow’s mite,” and I invite all of us to emerge from whatever wildernesses we are in to share what we can and<\/em> receive from each other with open hearts, minds, and hands. Sometimes, it seems, we have wishes to share together, standing side by side, and that requires of us love and grace.<\/p>\n \u201cdon\u2019t take those coins\u201d \u201cyou don\u2019t want to steal the wishes the girl squints at the magical water-spray the girl stuffs her hands deep in her pockets she reaches out to the woman <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have been wandering a writing wilderness. My human dustiness has fogged my brain and smudged my creative vision for many months now. A few weeks ago I experienced an unexpected stirring of my imagination. Some friends and I were gathered together near a park in my city. A wonderful water feature, a fountain with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":59678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3119],"tags":[176,3561,3560],"class_list":["post-59676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-plaza-new-ws","tag-holy-week","tag-hospitality","tag-widows-mite"],"yoast_head":"\nEmerging from the Wilderness<\/h2>\n
\n<\/span>mama says in her scolding voice
\n<\/span>as the girl dips into the wishing fountain
\n<\/span>toward a sun-polished silver orb
\n<\/span>the girl jerks her hand back
\n<\/span>hides it in her jeans pocket
\n<\/span>peers side-eyed into the sparkling water<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>folks whispered into that old pocket change
\n<\/span>if only alice would get well if only
\n<\/span>raymond knew i love him if only
\n<\/span>a nickel for passing tomorrow\u2019s
\n<\/span>math test a silver dollar to see daddy
\n<\/span>one last time a dime for snow this
\n<\/span>christmas a quarter for the violence
\n<\/span>all of the violence all of the violence
\n<\/span>to end and who wants to
\n<\/span>carry any of that home\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>and then just over there where silver curls
\n<\/span>feather in the march wind but the woman
\n<\/span>seems not to notice as she searches through
\n<\/span>a well-used black purse \u201cshe looks lonely\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>digs out a blue lego the yellow eraser she
\n<\/span>found in her desk in mrs harvey\u2019s 2nd grade
\n<\/span>reading class grandpas old car key a piece
\n<\/span>of red yarn and two old brown pennies<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>\u201cone for me and one for you and we can
\n<\/span>wish at the same time mama always says
\n<\/span>be careful what you wish for\u201d and
\n<\/span>the two of them old and young pitch
\n<\/span>a single cent
\n<\/span>each coin somersaulting
\n<\/span>into the water slipping
\n<\/span>through the surface down
\n<\/span>down on top of
\n<\/span>nickels dimes quarters
\n<\/span>woman and girl watch
\n<\/span>till the ripples quiet enough to
\n<\/span>mirror their faces
\n<\/span>reflected
\n<\/span>side by side<\/span><\/p>\n