Fragments

Widely known for such books as “In Wisdom's Path” and “In the Sanctuary of Women”, Jan Richardson is an artist, writer, and ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. A Florida native several generations over, Jan travels as a retreat leader and conference speaker and serves as director of The Wellspring Studio, LLC.

And so we take the ragged fragments
the patches of darkness
that give shape to the light;
the scraps of desires
unslaked or realized;
the memories of spaces of blessing,
of pain.
….
And so we lay them at the threshold, God:
bid you hold them, bless them, use them;
ask you tend them, mend them,
transform them
to keep us warm,
make us whole,
and send us forth.

–And so we take the ragged fragments
the patches of darkness
that give shape to the light;
the scraps of desires
unslaked or realized;
the memories of spaces of blessing,
of pain.
….
And so we lay them at the threshold, God:
bid you hold them, bless them, use them;
ask you tend them, mend them,
transform them
to keep us warm,
make us whole,
and send us forth.

–Jan Richardson, Night Visions