lianne's blogs

Walking Barefoot

February 19, 2012

Walking Barefoot

I see it now, the sacred scripture of my life
like the Deuteronomist looking back,
retracing the map, recording the way
through the wilderness of my years.
My heart has led me here to Canaan
where I did not think I could go at all.
In unenlightened fear, I could not imagine it,
so enslaved was I within at least familiar land,
the Egypt of my patterns, possessions, memories,
ritual ways I simply would not leave behind.
My heart insisted though, in whispers from within,
that with no shoes upon my feet, I should cross the Nile,
wade the waters of my woundedness unshod,
walk barefoot upon the beatitude of my brokenness.

There were, of course, the dry desert years
when I scaled peaks of overweening pride,
stubbed my toes on rocks of resentment,
carved golden calves of greed and envy
and left bloody tracks of anger and hatred
on the hot sands of self-pity or selfishness.
But there were as often stones that split
from which sprang those waterfalls of wisdom
that quenched my thirst for knowledge
and taught me perspective from the pain.
With my naked feet on such holy ground
I saw burning bushes in every challenge
saw manna in the grace of trial that comes
with a column of ecstatic inner fire.
Baptized in the Jordan of new hope,
now in fully awakened illumination
I stepped barefoot into the promised land.


*Deuteronomist – my personification as a single individual of the entire school of ancient Jewish authors and editors that biblical scholars believe to be responsible for the final draft of the Torah or the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Hebrew and Christian bibles) which includes the book of Exodus – the biblical story of Moses, the ten commandments and the inhabitation of the “Promised Land.”

Canaan – the biblical Promised Land, the “land of milk and honey.”