Dearly Beloved,
Blessings to you on this New Year's Day. I hope and pray that joy and peace are yours today, and I pray for peace in our world. I thought I'd share with you a poem written by Sarah Speed for Epiphany Sunday, which we'll celebrate on January 5th. Part of our celebration on Sunday will be receiving Star Words for this New Year. If you won't be with us in person, please reach out to me, and I'll send you a Star Word by email or snail mail.
I'm thinking of each of you and sending love -- praying that you may indeed know that there are a million roads home and that God walks every single one of them.
With love and blessings,
Thandiwe
Field Notes by Rev. Sarah Speed
With tears in your eyes,
you name all the bumps
and zigzags your life has taken.
With clenched teeth
and a hummingbird pulse,
you wake up
and wonder—how did I get here?
In the last 40 days of
desert wandering, you say
you haven’t heard God’s voice once.
You say you miss when God was close,
when God used to sing the harmony line.
So you yell at the sky,
begging God to drop a pin,
to name the road,
to draw you a map.
You lament the way this life isn’t easy.
You ask me—was the road ever straight and narrow,
or was that all a lie?
But then you crest the mountain,
and I don’t hear from you for a while,
because God was growing
in the lilac field
on the other side of the hill.
God was scattered
among the pebbles
of the road you never planned to take.
Isn’t it amazing, you say,
there are a million roads home
and God walks every single one of them.
