in my spiritual direction training class, we had a challenge to pick a mystic or a prophet we wanted to learn from. my own director joked that I should pick Wonder Woman, and for a couple of weeks I seriously considered researching and writing my paper on Diana. but gradually I was reminded of how much I appreciate St. Thérèsa, so I ended up with her — and I created a poem from quotes from Thérèsa but with some inspiration from Diana as well. but this is mostly direct quotes from Thérèsa’s autobiography.
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for a long time I had wondered
why God had preferences —
such extraordinary graces
poured out on such great sinners.
forcing his grace on them —
forcing his grace on me. and why?
now — I wonder about the living garden of the Lord – I wonder as I walk through — what delights him?
the simplicity of the flowers in the field,
the grandeur of the cedar in the valley,
the cedar and the little flower together, he stoops low to touch them both.
both the cedar and the little flower
show how infinitely great —
how greatly infinite — he is .
so a flash — a foretaste of heaven
here in the forest —
one could be a cedar, tall, magnificent, glorious, pointing the way.
one could be a little flower, small, delicate, glorious, trampled in the way.
one could be a saint in varying degrees as he pours out his light so lavishly on both,
the cedar, the little flower.
both reside fully in the living garden of God.
both are fully the living garden — one is just as full of light as the other
because neither of them could hold any more.
and why? why force such extraordinary grace?
why his infinite great —
his great infinite —
his lavish light?
His stooping caress?
why do I try to force to contain in a heart-shaped container who and what and where I am?
why choose?
I choose everything —
I choose to choose —
I choose not to yearn to be a cedar and long to be a flower,
I choose not to be a saint by halves.
for the cedar and the flower are both the fullness of the glory of the grace of God.
the cedar and the flower are both full.
they contain —
we contain —
I contain
the fullness of the indescribable,
and contain the uncontainable
in the living garden of God.
perhaps the greater 