debbie pryor – sometimes the day

Sometimes the day
just caves in on you
like you were porous
made of sand

you woke
steady as rock
you showered
you dressed
you stared off into the distance
whilst the coffee sipped your sleepiness
away

you dropped the kids
at school
you weaved from this lane
to that
hoping to escape
the modern day slow moving
tragedy of traffic

but you were forced to sit
in your luxurious alcove
where your miserly wits look out
at the others
in theirs
the place where eyes
lives
compare

and then I saw him
I don’t know him well
but i do know
that his baby died
suddenly
long before he was five

and there he was
sitting like all others
obedient in their lanes
abiding by the rules
of another day

nobody would know by looking
what he has had taken away

So the day caves in on you
like you were made of dust
because no amount of tears
or empathy
can fill some holes
in those around us.

matthew 6: 22 – 34

The Lamp of the Body

22“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

24“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon.

Do Not Worry

25Therefore, I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26See the birds of the sky, that they don’t sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you of much more value than they?27“Which of you, by being anxious, can add one moment to his lifespan? 28Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin, 29yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won’t he much more clothe you, you of little faith? 31“Therefore don’t be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’ 32For the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.

34Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient.”