Gathering My Thoughts

"Unite my heart to fear (reverence) Your name” 

—Psalm 86:11

Gather my thoughts, dear Lord, they fitfully roam

    Like children bent on foolish wandering,

Or vanity of fruitless wayfaring

    O call them home.

See them—they drift like the wind-scattered foam;

    Like wild sea birds, they hither, thither fly,

And some sink low, and others soar too high

    O call them home.

Wherever, Lord, beneath the wide blue dome

    They wander, in Thy patience find them there:

That, undistracted, I may go to prayer. —George Herbert

Plato said our minds are like aviaries and our thoughts are like birds. It’s an apt metaphor as I age. I reach for a thought and it eludes me; I grasp at another and I frighten it away. I can only pray...

“Gather my thoughts, dear Lord, to worship and adore.”

David Roper

8.18.18