Jessica Powers

Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit

Not too long ago, Magnifacat Magazine published a beautiful poem by Jessica Powers, a name that was completely unknown to me.  I lingered over the final words of that poem, The Garments of God, which read:

"here in the dark I clutch the garments of God."

And I clutched those words throughout the day, pondering about who the author of such wonder could be.  I didn't have to think on it for long, as within a day I found a blog post by Easter from Hawaii, and learned that she, too, was enamored by the poem penned by that unknown poetess.  But Easter did more than I did, she began to search in an effort to learn more about Jessica Powers and she found this wonderful website with a wealth of information about Jessica Powers, who spent most of her life as Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, a Carmelite nun living at the Carmel of the Mother of God in Pewaukee, Wisconsin.  I had the honor of praying at that very same convent  with my niece several years ago and had no idea that I was in the earthly home of so great a poet.  I wrote about that prayer experience here and after re-reading that post I'm going to have to make an effort to get back out to that convent for some one-on-one time with the Lord, and this time I will be praying for the intercession of a saintly poet!

After learning that Jessica Powers was the author of several volumes of poetry, I quickly put in a request at my favorite library, St. Francis de Sales Seminary's Salzmann Library, and was soon holding every book by or about this wonderful poet within my hands.  Jessica Powers was a close friend to Green Bay's Auxiliary Bishop Robert Morneau and several of her books of poetry were collected and edited by this local holy man.  You can read an article of his about her here.

One of the things that impresses me the most about Jessica Powers is that she has a great love for nature, specifically the wilds of Wisconsin.  I brought several of her poetry editions along with me when my family and I took a recent camping vacation to Devil's Lake State Park just south of her hometown of Mauston.  While sitting around the campfire, my husband suggested that we have a poetry reading, with my children, and he and I each taking a turn reading one of her poems aloud.  After each reading, everyone snapped their fingers, which is apparently the hip thing to do to show appreciation for the poem instead of clapping.  I was just so happy to introduce spiritual poetry to my family as willing participants that although I would have preferred silence in lieu of the snapping, I went along with the game anyway and found that it was most enjoyable.  If the Spirit inspires you, feel free to snap your fingers after reading the following poems by Jessica Powers, or simply absorb them in silence.

Doves (from:  The Lantern Burns)

A dove in the air,
A dove in the sea,
And a dove in your glance
When you look at me.

Feather of dusk,
Wings in the grain,
And a crumpled bird
In the wake of pain.

Everywhere doves
With their drifting wings;
In a dream, in a song
That a poet sings;

In the touch of death,
In the kiss of love,
And God Himself
As a snow-white dove.

The Seventh Station (from:  The Place of Splendor)

The corner is dark and nobody sees this station.
He falls again, and the picture has nothing new.
The air is musty, crowded under the choir loft,
And people pass with a hurried glance or two.

I think that it must have been true in ancient Juda
As it is true on this shaded chapel wall
That He Whose love had rooted itself in suffering
Would find the most uncomforting place to fall.

Take Your Only Son  (from:  The House at Rest)

None guessed our nearness to the land of vision,
not even our two companions to the mount.
That you bore wood and I, by grave decision,
fire and sword, they judged of small account.

Speech might leap wide to what were best unspoken
and so we plodded, silent, through the dust.
I turned my gaze lest the heart be twice broken
when innocence looked up to smile its trust.

O love far deeper than a lone begotten,
how grievingly I let your words be lost
when a shy question guessed I had forgotten
a thing so vital as the holocaust.

Hope may shout promise of reward unending
and faith buy bells to ring its gladness thrice,
but these do not preclude earth's tragic ending
and the heart shattered in its sacrifice.

Not beside Abram does my story set me.
I built the altar, laid the wood for flame.
I stayed my sword as long as duty let me,
and then alas, alas, no angel came.

OCD

Exhaustion. That’s my excuse and I guess I’ll stick with it. I frequently suffer from insomnia and this past month I feel as though I have suffered from this malady with increasing frequency. In addition to lack of sleep, things at work have been very busy and stressful. The economy sure has a lot of people down these days and WIC is a tremendous blessing in the pocketbook for those who qualify. This past Wednesday was a particularly stressful day that ended with a sick baby vomiting on me, and his very overwhelmed, homeless mother crying in my arms. I arrived home later than usual, but still had to take on a huge baking task. My daughter Mary and I have the annual chore of baking kolaches for our upcoming family reunion, and this was the night we had scheduled to bake the treats, all 12 dozen of them. We were rolling dough and filling pastries until 10:30 at night. I should have gone straight to bed after that, but I didn’t. Instead I thought I’d just take a few minutes to look over the some of my favorite blogs.

God seems to be drawing me to Carmelite blogs with more and more frequency. Perhaps He was doing this because I needed a lesson in humility. Whether that was His intention or not, humility is what I got! I found a beautiful new blog written by a cloistered Carmelite nun. You can find the blog link in my list (lounge de sa gloire). The prayers and pictures are lovely! I just had to leave a comment. Unfortunately, I was not thinking clearly and I made an absolute fool of myself! Her bio described her as an ocd sister. In a world of abbreviations, the first thing those initials brought to my mind was “obsessive, compulsive disorder” to which I can completely relate. So, I told the sweet sister, “don’t feel bad about being ocd, I am too! As long as we are obsessed with Jesus and compulsive about prayer, its all good, isn’t it?” Then I went to bed.

The next morning, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, I was driving to work and thinking about the feast day and all of the lovely Carmelites I had been coming to know when my mistake hit me like a ton of bricks. OCD…Order of Carmelites, Discalced! I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so for the entire day, I vacillated between both! I couldn’t believe my ignorance! Of course this happened at a time when I was thinking pretty highly of myself, so getting knocked down a few notches was really what I needed.

That night it was back to the blogs to offer a humble apology. How do you show a red face with your words? Of course, the dear ocd sister forgave me and actually had a good laugh about it herself. And the lesson I learned? When you are tired, do not leave comments on blogs. When you are tired, do what comes naturally; go to bed! And now, good night from an OCD (obsessive compulsive) mom who may someday become a much better kind of OCD (Order of Carmelites, Discalced) Secular mom! Now I need a nap!