what are you looking for?

We gathered in a circle, read the text and then scattered. 

Off into cubbies, every nook and cranny of the church. 

Outside into the woods, down the walking trails, 

In the library, by the window alcove. 

What are you looking for, what are you looking for?

I knew my answer quickly and made circles within circles, 

all leaning into one idea that holds every idea: radical peace. 

A full uncompromised knowing that I am loved, 

I am known, I am cared for.  My life has meaning. 

Because, in that fearlessness, I know I will be free 

to love, know and fully care for others.  

When it was time to share, Scott spoke 

of hiking to an outcropping over the river

where he knew -- realized-- that only he and God where there 

at that time, in that place.  What an amazing idea that is:

God and I are the only ones writing this poem.  

God and you, whoever you are are, are the only ones reading it. 

God is somewhere fishing with a man on a wide river in Texas, 

God is folding laundry in Peoria, Illinois. 

God and child have just drifted off to sleep on Dellwood Road. 

Scott said that when he came back inside to write, 

it was more like a dialogue.  Him asking a question, 

and then, without explanation, a holy response. 

There were tears in his eyes when he spoke of this. 

Others shared.  Not really what they were looking for, 

but how it felt to think and write about the question. 

When we were done, I went straight over to Scott

and asked, "What did God say back?  What did he tell you?" 

Then Scott turned his body, and I turned mine 

as we made our own little circle apart from the others.

He read what he had written.  He whispered God's response, 

his hands shaking, the paper twitching. 

Round drops falling on the page. 

And it was beautiful what Scott wrote, 

and how God answered -- I can't tell you, 

I won't tell you as much as I want to -- 

that is Scott's poem to write.  All I know is this:  

that Scott and I and God were the only ones there, 

in the Sycamore Room of the River's Edge Retreat Center, 

in that moment, in that place, with and for each other, 

under our own tent of radical peace.