Central Methodist Mission

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, wrote a poem ‘Bleak Weather’. Inspired by the poem, Stephen Berg another renowned poet composed the following prayer poem:

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Love, make me bolder.

Bold to take myself less seriously, so to take beauty, kindness, mercy, more seriously.

Bold to recall, under the tyranny of all our applied technology, that we are still in swaddling clothes, still coming into being, that the slow magic of creation is still proceeding.

Bold, in the stricture of our visual culture, to honor the invisible, repose within mystery, and tend the garden of the inner-life.

Bold to hold things loosely. To release what constricts the spirit and sours the soul.

Bold to leave this room, this house, this earth, more caring and hospitable than I found it—grateful for the sublime luck to have touched another soul. And for this to be enough.

Love, make me bolder. Willing to listen with the ear of the heart, to stand under your gaze, and be open to change.

Love, may my actions bear you witness.

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Prayers of grace and peace to everyone, Sikawu.