Walking with Naked Feet

A poem about burning bushes and what really matters in life

Good morning, friends. This email is in your “in-box” on a Sunday morning. I’ve done this on purpose. I’d like to try offering a poem to you on a slow day—a day of rest—a day to take it easy. It is my hope that a poem could help cultivate a growing and deepening caring for your soul. So, if you like, look at this as a “Sabbath Poem”. A poem to read, work with and reflect and perhaps even take a an action step if you want.

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This is a poem about learning to “turn aside” just like Moses did when he noticed a bush that was ablaze but not being consumed.  In Exodus 3, which is the Old Testament reading in many churches across the world today, we find Moses confronted with a burning bush. We find him on the backside of a mountain in the middle of nowhere and he has a life-altering experience which brings clarity and conviction. Moses takes his shoes off and our invitation is to do the same.

My poem is about my own growing awareness of the many burning bushes I have missed upon my way—to do my work; live my life; raise a family and ad nauseum!

This is a poem about noticing; naming and nurturing our “innerscapes”. First, we notice something a bit intriguiging. Second, we put words to it by naming what it is that we think might be happening. And third, we learn to nuture this inner-awareness—pay attention to it. Move slowly. We stop. We hush. We are still.

By innerscape, I mean the spiritual center deep inside of each of us—the actual place where God resides—not in temples of brick and mortar but in the beautiful sanctuaries of the souls of human beings. As surely as we know the outerscapes of the terrain of our world, there is the innerscape of the soul that we become more and more aware of in life as we learning about burning bushes and epiphanies happening all around us and in us.

The spiritual life is actually a spiritual life. How odd it is as modern people to ignore our spiritual center—our souls. More, how tragic it is to not give attention to the dignity of other souls in our midst by our speed, busyness, pre-occupations and obessions.

This growing awareness is actually the journey of learning to be contemplative. It is the invitation to notice, name and nurture the many burning bush experiences which are all around us. But, because of our busyness, the cult of speed and our pre-occupation with certainty and facts, we are missing out on a beautiful, life-giving and journey altering experience with God.

This is a poem about moving away from the sin of certainty to surrender our need to unlearn some things; perhaps to be unformed in all our spiritual formation. Why? Because just maybe, we haven’t gotten things right thus far on our journies. In unlearning, we can learn to be open to burning bushes and revelations; ephiphanies and greater awareness of God and self.

This is a poem about naked feet; slowing down and see people as God sees them—sees us!

This is a poem about marriage.  Why? Because in my own marriage of over forty years now, I’m realizing that I often missed the burning bush in Gwen. Call it life. Call it having four sons. Call it my climbing the wrong ladder to be successful or any other possibility, this poem in brief, is the journey of noticing, naming and nurturing the Sacred within.

This is a poem about a friendship. Why? Because through friendship, we can clearly come to “see” the holy in another face.

The fact is, I wish I had written this particular poem scores decades ago. But the truth is, I was not ready to write it.  I was not particularly interested in anything happening on the “backside of mountains”. I was afraid of the quiet and silence was not my friend. It took years, decades actually to recover from my addictive ways and patterns of looking for God in all the wrong places—and in too many faces.

A few years ago, I began to cut back on my work—focusing on the few things that I was doing that brought my life, joy and satisfaction.  Offering spiritual direction—spending focused time in deep conversation with one person at a time, soared to the top of the list of what I just knew I wanted to expand and focus on. There have been times in offering spiritual direction, that I have felt the burning bush so intensely inside my own chest. I could stake my life upon the fact that a match had been tossed down and all the ground around me was on fire with the holiness and presence of God.

To say, “this poem is my penance” is to confess that grand, erroneous tragedy of missing the burning bush too many times in work, family, marriage and friendship. it is to confess to God—”I’m sorry for all the times that, in my speed to “do” life that I missed the burning bush.” And, in scurrying and hurrying by, I was left in the cold and in the dark.  A burning bush brings more than just light and warmth.

A burning bush brings Sacred Presence.  This Sacred Presence came come up from behind us and take our breath away.  Or, it can bring such a fire that we lose ourselves in the other—in the Other.

“I Will Walk With Naked Feet” gives voice to the experience of recognition, regret and respect of every Burning Bush we encounter

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