Liturgy 086: Creature Limits, Creator Invitations

Masculinity & Spirituality Part A

Lectio Divina

The LORD is my Shepherd
I shall not want…
Psalm 23

The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.
Thomas Merton

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Prayer

I would like to sit beside
the man I truly am,
the one without a script.

As a child,
I was handed a picture of manhood.

Generations of Eastern Confucian Hierarchy
and West Coast Gangster Rap
conspired to paint a portrait of a man:
stoic, untouchable, always in control.

So I played the part.
Be it all.
Fix it all.
Carry it all.

I confused responsibility with worth,
capability with identity,
exhaustion with faithfulness.

But here.
As I sit beside
this middle aged man.

I pray he learns to honor
the shoreline of his strength
the borders of his bones
the slow, unfolding shape
of his season.

For Goodness and Mercy gather here,
like morning light across the water.

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Blessing

Dear Friend

May you come to see
your creature limitations
as invitations from the Creator
to be gentle, to receive, to give thanks.

May you lay down every script
that does not come from above.

In the Name of the One
Who formed you in your mother’s womb

Amen