The Devotional Voice

The soloist reached the line she had sung at other funerals and could not carry it today.

They came carrying spices, prepared to tend the dead. Dawn had barely found

Before the first hymn, we carry chairs from the hall. One leg wobbles.

He sits near the door because the baby may wake. The sermon reaches him

My father did not pray loudly. He measured twice, returned borrowed tools,

We call you fire, then imagine only heat. But holy fire does not need

Before the prayer becomes language, there is breath. Before courage becomes action,

The summer church picnic finally grows quiet. Children leave rings in the grass.

She noticed the wine before the hosts had to name their embarrassment. Mary carried the problem quietly,

Not every wonder became a speech. Some entered memory quietly: shepherds smelling of fields,

The ordinary jar was half full. The floor still needed sweeping. Then a greeting entered the room

If the flowers at the church door feel heavier than flowers, you do not have to smile.

We gather with gratitude and with stories that do not match. Some come celebrating.

Thank you for the people who found one another deliberately: spare-key keepers,

The bulletin says family and friends, so the doors must mean it. Make room for the aunt who raised him,

The coffee is weak. The testimony is not. One man speaks about recovery.

God of strength that does not bruise, teach us the courage of a gentle answer, the discipline of listening fully,

For men who lead from the front, and men who keep the chairs in rows: make us faithful.

Bless the mother holding a sleepy child. Bless the woman who mothered without being called mother.

Before there was our fear, our argument, our need to be forgiven,

Grace from the Father who calls creation good. Peace from the Son

No organ today. No vaulted ceiling. Eight folding chairs,

At the table we thank the Father for bread and field, remember the Son

I say Father and bring every human father into the room—

We had closed every window and called our fear prudence. Still the Spirit came—

Before my careful sentence, the Word was already turning toward the wounded world.

I tried to make the Trinity behave like numbers on a classroom board. One plus one plus one.

The Son stands ankle-deep in Jordan water. The Spirit descends—not captured, not owned—a dove's brief shape

The water holds no explanation. It receives the child's forehead, the trembling hand,

The women came carrying spices, not certainty. Morning had barely found the stone.

When the geese go south, no sermon follows. The sky keeps their brief handwriting,

The field looks empty because its work is underground. Roots loosen.

For soil we did not make, rain we could not schedule, hands that planted before ours:

May the leaves teach release without calling every loss beautiful. May the field after harvest

The usher knows who needs the aisle, who comes late from work,

After the sermon, a kitchen light remains. Two people divide the day:

Thank you for the public word, and for the private boundary. For doors opened in crisis,

The oldest member carries keys to rooms no longer named: choir cupboard, furnace stair,

These walls have heard wedding vows and ambulance calls, first hymns, last breaths,

We arrive before the birds, coats over Sunday clothes, coffee warming paper hands.

After the alleluia, chairs must still be stacked. Someone gathers paper cups.

Easter is not only lilies, white cloth, brass, a crowded hymn. It is the locked room opening.

The stone did not roll because grief had finished. Mary came carrying sorrow,

One candle remains. Then even that small flame is carried from the room.

God of the unfinished answer, meet us before dawn changes anything. Meet the ones whose grief

The cross was wood: grain, splinter, weight, a tree remade by empire

At three o'clock the sanctuary clock continues. A truck reverses outside.

After the service, palm branches lie beneath the pews, green commas from a sentence

No warhorse. No polished saddle. A young colt carries

Hosanna fills the road, bright leaves against the dust, children learning joy

Before the palms were lifted, someone cut them from a tree. Before the road sang welcome,

Dark says door. Grief says closed. Fear says every road

I don't pray the way I was taught—on my knees, hands folded, words memorized like a password to heaven.

Ninety feet between the bases. Someone measured this and got it perfectly right.

Sunday morning. Before the sermon. Before the hymns and the handshakes.

I don't know what I believe but I know the feeling when the light hits the kitchen table

What I think about most is not the miracles— the water, the wine,

Praise the cracking open of the seed, the blind ambition of the buried root, the robin's first bewildered, breathless creed

Blessed are those who aren't sure. Blessed are those who came to church for the singing, stayed for the quiet,

A preacher who prayed every night for a sign he was living it right heard thunder at ten