Walk with the Paradoxical Pastoralist—where Laudato si', honest questions, and Lectio Divina meet.
I ran for the dawn,
to be first in the light,
to outrun the shadows
that lingered from night.
But truth does not yield
to the swift or the fast—
it waits in the stillness
that follows the past.
So I stepped into wonder,
no longer to prove—
and found that the first
was the moment I moved.
This quiet Saturday,
no trumpet, no flame—
just silence that whispers
He knows every name.
I reached for the past,
for the day I held dear—
but grace met my longing
and drew me from fear.
For love is not kept
by refusing to part—
but by trusting its place
in a far deeper heart.
I woke to the weight
I did not invite,
a cross in the blur
of a restless night.
I wished it away,
or softened its claim—
but there it remained,
unchanged by my shame.
So I lifted it slightly—
not strong, but aware:
that Christ had already
been carrying it there.
I looked to the sky
for something to mend
a world that seemed
to fracture and bend.
But grace took a towel,
and knelt on the floor—
and showed me a way
I’d not seen before.
For healing is not
in the heights above—
but in hands made low
by the labor of love.
I said, “Surely not—
this cannot be me,”
with a voice full of calm
and false certainty.
But truth does not shout—
it quietly stays,
waiting to surface
beneath my sure ways.
So I trade in my certainty,
costly though it be—
for the question that saves:
“Lord… is it me?”
A fragment of bread,
a moment misplaced—
a change in the rhythm
I thought I had traced.
I took it with tension,
with quiet unrest—
and felt something darker
stir in my chest.
But grace slipped beside it,
unseen, unforeseen—
another small gift
where mercy had been.
For night falls not swiftly,
but piece by small piece—
and so does the dawn
when I choose to receive peace.
I followed a voice
that was not quite His own,
and mistook the echo
for a throne.
I clung to the man
and forgot the call—
that no earthly guide
can carry it all.
But grace broke the chain
I had quietly cast—
and turned me to Christ
at last.
The city was stirred,
the ground gave a cry—
as truth rode in
and passed by.
My faith, too, trembled,
cracked at the seam—
when life proved harsher
than I had dreamed.
But shaken is not
the same as undone—
for what stands the storm
is what faith has begun.
I walked on the ground
I once called my own,
through seasons of harvest
and seeds I had sown.
I feared for its future,
its fading, its fall—
and tried, in my wisdom,
to steady it all.
But land is not held
by the strength of my hand—
it rests in the will
of the One who gives land.
I ran from the noise
and the weight of the day,
from sorrow that would not
be reasoned away.
But flight without purpose
is just another chain—
a quieter prison
disguised as relief from pain.
So I fled to the place
where the broken are kept—
and found I was held,
not merely escaped.