Posted on December 6, 2023 by Jenn Zatopek

My Other Examen

The father and I are one.
– Jesus (John 10:30)

He who experiences the unity of life sees his own self in all beings.
– Buddha

The religious often say:
You live in these tired glorious bodies.

But where? The lonely child in me wants
more than words but a mountain to climb into.

Where can I put my hands in yours, dear God?
How to feel our belonging together?

This heaviness is too much to carry,
unutterably alone, lost within myself.

Labyrinths of my past beckons
as I stumble around in darkness but—

In the seeming absence, Your silence speaks,
reminds me tenderly in the deepest fissures of pain,

I place one hand over the other,
praising this ocean of breath and know:

We cannot help but be one, You and I,
in this dear body being breathed.

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