Prayer for the Beginning of Lent

When you ask me today,

Friend, what are you doing?

I will tell you,

I am building the inner room.
I am letting the inner room build me.
I am constructing a place for the spirit of God to dwell.

You will say to me, Friend, show me the place!
For I wish to labor there also. Show me the hillside, that I may find it pleasing to my Lord,

and I will tell you,

I am building a room without walls – I am building a house without beams to hold it.
I have taken my ribs for walls, and my spine will be the ridgeline of the roof.
My eyes will be its windows, and the roof of my mouth the lintel posts.

Oh, my beloved friend, if I could admit you!
If I could show you truly the dwelling place of God within me. For it is my wellspring and my delight,
It is a place truly pleasing to me,
And I would share it with you always.

Let my words go in and out from my doorways into yours,
Like friends moving between our two houses
and in that way your place will be known to mine
and mine to yours.

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One of my goals for Lent this year is to do a little bit of spiritual reading once or twice a week, and I decided to start that I'd go to Mass today. It ended up being a little bit more emotional than I bargained for (think me and crying and looking ridiculous over nothing except being in church reading) and, of course, when I get emotional, I write. I wrote part of this on the way home.

I figured out I really, really like being able to visit other people's inner rooms, as they're described in the poem. If you want to talk about God, I'm listening. My inner room is open to you.