My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen. —Thomas Merton,Thoughts in Solitude
I love this prayer. I love its honesty, and how it settles me into trust with the words, “You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
But there is one noticeable scratch in this record: the repeated words “please You.” The weight that’s given to pleasing You conjures up images of having to sit still to please my teacher, tidying my room to please my mother, pleasing my father by not needing him, pleasing others so they’ll like me.
Speaking frankly, as one friend to another, I’m done with wanting to please anyone, including You.
I sit in the silence and think of Thomas Merton who taught me that God desires me to become more and more who I already am, know deep within my being I’m loved, I’m enough, that God is within me, connecting me to everyone and everything, enabling me to love, and opening me to moments when I, too, stand at a street corner suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I love all these people, I love the trees, birds and clouds.
Then You speak to me gently, as one friend to another. I hear that this desire not to please you does, in fact, please You. You don’t mind that I can’t sit still or haven’t made my bed. It pleases you to come near when I need a father or a friend.
In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. —Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Credits and References: First day of school – student of first grade by World Bank Photo Collection. Used with permission Pleasing You by Estherer Hizsa, 2026 “Principal’s Office” by Brandon Dill. Used with permission.
Now there was a day when Job’s sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” —Job 1:13-19 (ESV)
Click here for a YouTube video recording of me reading this poem.
Panic rushes through the door the moment I see the blue screen of death on my laptop. “Why did you push that button? Everything is lost [on your hard drive]. I alone have surfaced to tell you.”
The next day, I get an email from WordPress telling me to URGENTLY repair the PHP, whateverthehell that is. Is it a scam? I have a moment of hope until my friend tells me she heard about it in the news. It’s a BIG, COMPLICATED problem. Fred, my husband and IT and LIG (Life In General) support, is focused on the patient dying on his operating table and can’t help me.
I hear Panic pacing, turn up the music and eat something.
Three a.m. the next morning, I drop Fred off at the airport. He’ll be gone for five days visiting his 93-year-old mother in Ontario. Meanwhile, I have work to do, guests coming, beds to make, meals to prepare– not to mention the contempative event I’m hosting and cofacilitating for the first time in a new place on Saturday.
Panic, breathless and unable to restrain his… well… panic, says, “You better do something NOW or you could lose all the writing of the past thirteen years! That’s 750 blog posts. I alone have surfaced to tell you.”
I shove him out the door and lock it.
Three o’clock Saturday morning, he’s picked the lock and glaring at me. His warning is on endless repeat. “Do something. Do something. Do something, or you’ll regret it. You WILL regret it.”
I get up, turn on my mom’s Chromebook and research. Fifteen minutes later, I discover my website has been unaffected. I copy the comforting message, paste it in an email to my IT/LIG support and to my friend who’s been following the drama, and schedule my good news to arrive at a decent hour.
But Panic doesn’t leave. “The voicemail from the nurse practitioner at the High Risk Cancer Clinic that came in on Friday at 4, the phone call you should’ve taken…” He shakes his head and looks at the ceiling. “What do you think she meant by ‘incidental findings’ on your MRI? This could be bad, bad, bad. What if she calls back when you’re in peer supervision or giving your talk to the Ignatian retreatants? You’ll be hooped. Did you really think you could escape getting cancer because you don’t eat meat? Seriously. This is bad, bad, bad. I alone have surfaced … ” His nattering fades as sleep rescues me.
Saturday’s event goes well. My guests devour and ask for the recipes for the Buddha Bowl and the Yam and Chickpea Curry I serve. Sunday, I leave a voicemail about my availablity for the nurse practitioner at the High Risk Clinic. Monday morning at 8:30, she calls back. No bad news. Just confirming what I already knew, which wasn’t an issue.
Panic is nowhere to be seen.
Maybe he’s sleeping, because Sunday night, he was on high alert. He visited Fred and me simultaneously. How can he be in two provinces at once? Sheesh. “Via Rail is notoriously late. No guarantees that Fred will arrive at the airport on time. He could miss his non-refundable flight. This is going to cost a lot of money, not to mention the inconvenience. You’d better do something and fast, or the world will come to an end. I alone have surfaced to tell you.”
By morning, Fred and his wonderful sister have come up with a plan to get Fred to the airport on time. It’s going to work. “Text me when you’ve checked in and are waiting for your flight.” He does. But doesn’t press send.
Panic is now climbing the walls. I’m in peer supervision watching the clock, checking my phone. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. At one o’clock/four p.m. ET, the gate closes. He’s on the place or … “He’s had a heart attack, misplaced his phone and boarding pass, lost somewhere, or had an accident and is on the way to the hospital. Get out. Get out of your body or jump into the raging river of anxiety. I alone have surfaced to save you.”
At 2 p.m., I get a text: “I’m thru security and sitting at the departure gate one hour before it leaves.” and another: “I’m on the plane.”
A tidal wave of elation catapults Panic into the universe. Euphoria floods my veins.
“That was a lot,” said my friend and another when she, too, heard about my stress attack.
“That was a lot,” said the deer who came right to my window one morning.
“That was so hard,” said my Christmas cactus bursting with buds.
Not one recriminating word from Jesus.
Fred gave me the biggest hug when I met him at the airport.
“I have the best friends,” I told Panic. “Job would be jealous.”
You have many names, so many names I know. I woke up today calling you faithful. –Dee Wilson and Orlando Palmer, Many Names
Credits and References: Windows 7 Blue Screen of Death by Billy Bob Bain. Used with permission. Job Would Be Jealous by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Photo of deer by Esther Hizsa,
For days after I heard how my words wounded another, self-judgment hounded me, accusing me of being a bad, unsafe person. I felt shrouded in shame until God found me through a Lenten reflection on labyrinths with the themes: release, receive and return.
I imagined myself walking the labyrinth. I paused at the centre and entered the tomb with Jesus. There, I released the expectation that I would learn from my mistakes and stop hurting or offending people.
It was a painful death, letting go of the hope that I could leave that dark part of me behind. As I mentally walked out of the labyrinth, I pondered these questions.
What would it be like to love that dark part of me even when other people can’t?
What would it be like to stand with her when she feels the pain she caused, hold her when she sees her mistake, and forgive her seven times seventy times?
What would it be like to release her from the expectation that this can never happen again?
These questions allowed me to breathe again. I heard: Even if another person finds it hard to love me, I can love myself. I can forgive myself. I will offend others again and feel sad and disappointed, but I will be all right. I received these comforting and liberating words from God with gratitude, and peace began to return.
I shared my experience of resurrection with my spiritual director, weeping while I spoke. Accepting my humanity, forgiving and loving myself was freeing. Yet, I noticed how raw I felt. I wanted to withdraw from people. I felt as if I had no skin on.
My director invited me to turn toward those feelings and notice how God might want to be with me in them.
As I sat there, I sensed God’s tenderness and compassion. Then the idea came to me that God wanted to be my skin. I pictured God lovingly covering my raw, hurting self. I felt so safe and protected.
I told my director what came to me in the silence. “God seems to understand that when an incident like that happens, I’m hurt too, and it takes a while to recover. I think God is inviting me to take the time I need for my skin to grow back.”
I felt reassured. God is caring for me every step of the way.
You lead me in the path of goodness to follow Love’s Way. –Psalm 23:3 Nan C. Merrill, Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness
Credits and References: Rivendell Labyrinth 1&2 by Richard Bott. Used with permission Release, Receive and Return by Esther Hizsa (revised Oct 25, 2026) originally written and published in 2022.
So, when I read that I’m your friend if I keep your commands –even when those commands are summed up in loving God, others, and myself– I gotta say, it isn’t true. I’ve broken that commandment a zillion times, and you never stopped being my friend.
As one friend to another, I gotta tell ya, reading the Bible and listening deeply to hear what you meant is a bit of work.
Thankfully, I’m not reading it alone.
I wonder what it would be like to read the Bible without the fear of abandonment.
I walk with Jesus, and he walks with me. I rest with Jesus, and he rests with me. I speak to Jesus, and he speaks to me, as one friend to another. … I laugh with Jesus, and he laughs with me. I hide from Jesus, and he knows where I’ll be. I see my Jesus, his loving eyes see me, as one friend to another. —One Friend to Another, Jon Guerra
Credits and References: Friends talking by Elijah_Henderson from Freerange Stock. As One Friend to Another by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Two women walking by PickPik Royalty Free
Holy and Loving One, you have brought us into a good land– a land of lakes and hills, forests, streams and meadows, a land of orchards full of peaches, pears, cherries and apples–so many varieties of apples! fields full of pumpkins, corn and squash, and hillsides of trees that have survived fire and drought.
For this spacious and fruitful land we share with deer, bears, birds, squirrels, ants and snakes, we give you thanks. For lives without scarcity and lacking nothing, we give you thanks.
You made a covenant to care for us, and you have kept it. As your beloved children, we made a promise to you to care for what we have been given and to be a blessing to others. Help us keep that promise. Give us your wisdom, discernment and courage in the challenges we face each day.
Ever-Present One, help us know how to care, who and what to care for, and what’s enough.
Help us know what to do with what we’ve received and how we might bless others.
Come close, dear God, as we navigate our fears of scarcity and distrust of others and our desire to be generous and trust you. Show us what that looks like for each one of us. Relieve us of the pressure of measuring up.
You provide us with every blessing in abundance, so that we always have enough of everything. We always have enough of everything, and when we don’t see it, when we don’t feel it, remind us to talk to you, and help us to wait, and listen for your response.
Open our eyes to see your generosity, open our hearts to enjoy your lavish love, deepen our desire to share these gifts abundantly and joyously.
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land… –Deuteronomy 8:7 (NRSVUE)
God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. –2 Corinthians 9:8 (NRSVUE)
Credits and References: Pumpkin Patch by James Wheeler. Used with permission A Thanksgiving Prayer by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Apple Tree by GoToVan. Used with permission
I began to notice it more and more in conversations, in a turn of events, a sudden increase in price, a response I didn’t like.
I kept thinking they were doing something to me. “They” could be anyone, anything that ignited the panicky feeling that I was trapped with no way of escape.
I know when I first experienced it. An innocent game of hide-and-seek turned into a nightmare memory of being trapped in the dark. My body still feels it, a part of me still fears it.
Maybe that’s what started it and maybe it isn’t but two things have come to me:
A thought: Feeling trapped doesn’t mean someone has done something to me. There could be a hundred reasons that have nothing to do with me.
An image: God’s gentle hands hemming me in, comforting me, and turning me toward the light.
You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me… if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast… The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. –Psalm 139: 5, 10, 12
Credits and References: Trapped by Nathan O’Nions. Used with permission. Feeling Trapped by Esther Hizsa, 2026 The Open Door by Peter Ilsted (1861-1933), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
It must have been so scary for our ancestors, the first time the moon eclipsed the sun. Did they wonder if the end had come? Did they think God was punishing them? Did they brace themselves for perpetual darkness?
After the longest seven minutes they’d known, the sun peeked out and became herself again.
From that time forward, we didn’t have to fear an eclipse. Scientists explained it, calendars predicted it. We put on special glasses and marvel.
The first time our ancestors experienced a soular eclipse– God absent, total darkness– not for seven minutes, but for seventy-seven times seven hours, days, years. They thought it was true: God had left them alone.
Then, one day, there was light again, truth again, trust again.
Our ancestors told the stories of God hidden but never absent, passed it down from generation to generation wrote it in books, and on their hands and foreheads,
not so it would help us believe the unbelievable in the darkness, which is impossible, but so a community can hold our hands, and believe for us until the sun returns.
Union with God is not something we acquire by technique but the grounding truth of our lives that engenders the very search for God. Because God is the ground of our being, the relationship between creature and Creator is such that, by sheer grace, separation is not possible. God does not know how to be absent. The fact that most of us experience throughout most of our lives a sense of absence or distance from God is the great illusion we are caught up in; it is the human condition. –Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land
Credits and References: annual solar eclipse by Takeshi Kuboki. Used with permission Soular Eclipse by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Solar Eclipse 2017 by brendangates. Used with permission
“Join us,” they chant. “Still the ache. Be free. End the war.”
Loud, insistent, incessant. “Take the blame. Hate yourself. If you love your life, you’ll lose it. Take the blame. Take the blame. End the war.”
Everything in me wants to leap overboard.
But You grab my shoulders, tie me to the mast, cover my ears with Your big, soft hands, lock Your wide eyes on mine.
My torso, arms and legs fling against the ropes, struggle for release, until the sirens and jagged rocks become fainter, smaller.
Until all is silent, save the lap of waves, the tick of hearts,
and the ache asleep in the back of the boat.
O, Compassionate One, You reached from on high, You took me, You drew me out of many waters. You delivered me from my fears that bound me, and from ignorance that blinded me; for they threatened to overcome me, to separate me from You. –Psalm 18: 16-19, Nan C. Merrill, Psalms for Praying, An Invitation to Wholeness (paraphrased)
Credits and References: Herbert James Draper – Ulysses and the Sirens (1910) from Picryl. Creative Commons. The Sirens’ Song by E Hizsa, 2026 Ship Sailing at Sunset in Aruba by Trey Ratcliff. Used with permission.
I notice a sinking feeling. Argh!This isn’t what I want.
I tread water, grope for a footing.
Then, I notice, as I do the next thing–chop the carrots and onions– and the next–answer that email– I’ve floated past the obstacle.
Later on, I notice elation, a rising of delight and wonder.
I lay my head back, arms stretched out. My feet pop to the surface. I breathe in fresh air with my face to the wide-open sky.
The sinking feeling came like a wave, joy like another.
I’m floating in an ocean of Love receiving this breath, and now, this one.
I hope I will remember this– even for a nanosecond– when stormy waves come and keep coming.
And if I don’t, I’m grateful You’re treading water with me.
We cannot attain the presence of God because we are already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness. Little do we realize that God is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. As we take another it means that God is choosing us now and now and now. –Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs
Credits and References: Treading Water by Coast Guard News. Used with permission. Floating by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Floating by Sheila Dee. Used with permission.
Create in me a free heart, O God, a heart that welcomes every part of myself to be felt, seen and heard, a heart that sees You in creation and loves every bit of You.
May I receive love from all of who You are. Teach me the language of trees and birds, body and experience, silence, memory and community. Help me trust the deep knowing You seed within and around me and live aligned with compassion.
May I awaken more and more to my oneness with all, rooted in the reality that I belong, I’m needed, precious and enjoyed. May I be the me You knit together and do the work that is mine with a kind pace and generous delight. May I rest before I need to and nap guilt-free.
When this life is over, may I let go of what was and welcome death as a friend.
Thank you that You are already doing what we long for, already there, wherever we are.
Praise be to You! For You dwell within the heart of everything! –Psalm 116:19 Nan Merrill, Psalms for Praying
Credits and References: 109.365 nowhere to turn but to You by ashley rose,. Used with permission. Prayer for a Free Heart by Esther Hizsa, 2026 #36 in explore by ashley rose,. Used with permission.
