A Single Thing

In our Spiritual Formations class we have been practicing different disciplines. Two weeks ago we practiced Lectio Divina. This form of prayer has you read the biblical text —or some other spiritual writing— a few times over, paying attention to what lines or words or feelings speak to you. For some reason, I felt drawn to a book of poems I own by Rilke. His collection, The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, is one of my favorites. It's full of joyful reflections and heartbreaking laments. It is painfully honest and cuts to the heart of our longing for God. I flipped through the book until I came to "Ich Bete wieder, du Erlauchter." I must have read it out loud ten or twelve times, each time with more conviction than the last. I thought I would share it with you; in the hopes it will bring you solace. 

"I am praying again, Awesome One.

You hear me again, as words
from the depths of me
rush toward you in the wind.

I’ve been scattered in pieces,
torn by conflict,
mocked by laughter,
washed down in drink.

In alleyways I sweep myself up
out of garbage and broken glass.
With my half-mouth I stammer you,
who are eternal in your symmetry.
I lift to you my half-hands
in wordless beseeching, that I may find again
the eyes with which I once beheld you.

I am a house gutted by fire
where only the guilty sometimes sleep
before the punishment that devours them
hounds them out into the open.

I am a city by the sea
Sinking into a toxic tide.
I am strange to myself, as though someone unknown
had poisoned my mother as she carried me.

It’s here in all the pieces of my shame
that now I find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart -
oh let them take me now.
Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God – spend them however you want."

Rainer Maria Rilke
Rilke’s Book of Hours – Love Poems to God