My mind likes to find connections, and to organize things in little groups. I’m the person who pours her M&Ms on the table and sorts them according to color (and then eats them methodically so there are always the same number of each color). So when someone recently shared the Rumi poem below my mind made a neat little bouquet with that poem, Shel Silverstein’s poem-preface to Where The Sidewalk Ends, and five paragraphs that never fail to make me cry from Richard Foster’s preface to his book Prayer. Three invitations. They go nicely together, I think.

Come. Come in. You are welcome to come in.

The fourth invitation, which I’ll share first, is to my new Ten Thousand Places Facebook page. Please head over and “like” it — pull up a chair, and make yourself at home! I’ll post links to new blog posts there, and also shorter thoughts and quotes. I’d love it to be a place that embodies, just a little bit, the spirit of each of the three invitations below. And maybe it can be something of a community, as well. I think you guys would like each other.

Here’s my little bouquet of wildflower-invitations. You might want to put it in water when you get home. If you don’t have a vase, a mason jar or jelly jar will do just as nicely.

***

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times.
Come, yet again , come , come.

~Rumi

***

If you are a dreamer come in,
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar,
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer…
If you’re a pretender come sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

~Shel Silverstein

***

Perhaps you have never prayed before except in except in anguish or terror. It may be that the only time the Divine Name has been on your lips has been in angry expletives. Never mind. I am here to tell you that the Father’s heart is open wide — you are welcome to come in.

Perhaps you do not believe in prayer. You may have tried to pray and were profoundly disappointed…and disillusioned. You seem to have little faith, or none. It does not matter. The Father’s heart is open wide — you are welcome to come in.

Perhaps you are bruised and broken by the pressures of life. Others have wronged you, and you feel scarred for life. You have old, painful memories that have never been healed. You avoid prayer because you feel too distant, too unworthy, too defiled. Do not despair. The Father’s heart is open wide — you are welcome to come in.

Perhaps you have prayed for many years, but the words have grown brittle and cold. Little ever happens anymore. God seems remote and inaccessible. Listen to me. The Father’s heart is open wide — you are welcome to come in.

Perhaps prayer is the delight of your life. You have lived in the divine milieu for a long time and can attest to its goodness. But you long for more: more power, more love, more of God in your life. Believe me. The Father’s heart is open wide — you too are welcome to come higher up and deeper in.

~Richard Foster

***

Come. Come in. You are welcome to come in.

Love,Jessica