kyrie eleison

I prayed, Lord have mercy.

And mercy came in common ways.

It came in a brand new pair of binoculars, opened before Christmas and remembered for the trip. It came in the winter stillness of tiny Ajax Forest Park. It came in tracking a grey squirrel to its nest. It came in the discovery of a white breasted nuthatch, high in a tree. It came in hearing "Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella" by the UBC Singers on CBC radio.

It came in a well-worn hymnbook, and in the soaring harmonies of "O Holy Night." It came in half an hour's pleasant conversation with family. It came in a gentle snowfall on the first day of the year. It came in a plain white envelope, in a perfect pot of gravy, in the dark mesmerizing fury of a winter storm.

God moves in merciful ways, half hidden in the snow, but nonetheless accessible to listening ears, open eyes. His ways are higher. Yet he leaves a trail through the park for us to follow, graceful footprints in the snow.


~lg