Pasture Prayers

It seems what we write is often predictably “nice.” We learn early not to share personal struggles and when our heart is breaking and someone says, “How are you today?” The answer is inevitably “fine.” On the other hand, is there a slight chance that by sharing difficulties in our own lives might be just what someone else needs to read so he/she can say, “Thank God, I’m not weird! Someone else feels like this, too!” Today, my blog is about the current struggle of a woman. It is shared here with her permission; hopefully to help another.

I skipped church today
heading to the pasture.
My pew a rain-slick rock.
Music vibrates in low,
grazing hum of sheep—
occasional staccato baaaas
instead of rehearsed hymns.

I left that sanctuary on Saturday,
leaving behind polished sermon vowels
like counterfeit coins, unborn.
Tomorrow would have been another “love talk,”
a practiced voice dressed in tears,
metaphors of sheep would serve as hollow words.

I came where sheep are real.
Animals do not paint miracles or lie.
They do not care if I am saint or sinner.
They never ask me to confess
or perform my joy.
I am simply here. That is enough.

The pulpit speaks of forgiveness like a debt
to be ledger cleared by me.
Never the blind leader who always is innocent.
These sheep demand nothing;
no absolution ritual, no scripted apology
only the truth of a lamb’s flat stare.

I have traded the glowing screen
of old time songs with no current meaning
for the coarse, oily scent of wool.
No more “Amens.”
Just the steady, heavy sound
of something living, breathing, being.

My prayer partner is the earth.
I am asking for the strength
to be as honest as these animals:
to turn from what is hollow,
to seek the sun where it actually falls,
and to let the grass grow
over the places I will never walk again.

Pat Pickett, OblSB