This "response" of God to my prayers made me laugh, made me think, made me sober.
"Possible Answers to Prayer"
By Scott CairnsYour petitions—though they continue to bear
just the one signature—have been duly recorded.
Your anxieties—despite their constant,
relatively narrow scope and inadvertent
entertainment value—nonetheless serve
to bring your person vividly to mind.
Your repentance—all but obscured beneath
a burgeoning, yellow fog of frankly more
conspicuous resentment—is sufficient.
Your intermittent concern for the sick,
the suffering, the needy poor is sometimes
recognizable to me, if not to them.
Your angers, your zeal, your lipsmackingly
righteous indignation toward the many
whose habits and sympathies offend you—
these must burn away before you’ll apprehend
how near I am, with what fervor I adore
precisely these, the several who rouse your passions.
Scott Cairns is a Orthodox poet that I "discovered" a few years ago. His words are typically close-to-the-bone and oblique, which I have to say, I love. While I am Presbyterian in my approach to worship and heurmenuetic, I love how Mr. Cairns, from his Orthodox understanding unearths a strata of the love of God's creation that I can sometimes miss.
He is my favorite poet. If you happen to like this poem. Google his name and you might enjoy the ride, as I have. You might even start buying his books, as I did.
Citation: Cairns, Scott. Compass of Affection. Paraclete Press. 2006. Page 91.
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