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.
The image of a child crying in the back seat of my car enabled me to move from trying to silence my anxiety to having compassion for a young part of myself.
Over the next few days, I listened to my life and began to see what she was bringing to my attention: a nightmare, an email exchange, a moment of feeling trapped and losing my temper, the insight that followed.
When I pieced these together, I began to see what rattled her: an event that happened a few years ago re-traumatized her.
It didn’t just happen once, I heard. It didn’t end when you grew up. It happened again, and it will keep happening, and I will never be safe.
I felt her despair in my chest and let it be there, both of us held in “the wondrous luminous web” of God’s heart, grounded in the reality that it can and likely will happen again, God will be with me, and I’ll be okay. I’m not trapped in my anxiety. It comes and goes, and so can I.
But she doesn’t believe that.
I take her hand and go for a walk. We notice the birds that fled since the sky’s been smoky are back chirping in the morning. New grass has sprouted after last night’s rain. We look at the trees and remember holding the ecologist’s “cookie,” a slice of a tree trunk showing the growth rings of a tree that survived many fires. We will survive this too, even if the burn scars never go away.
I think these messages are for her. But, really, they’re for another part of myself that wants the young one to smarten up. This older part is in my body too, and I feel her relax a bit, sense a willingness to give more space for the little one to feel what she feels and tell me more when she’s ready.
Fire Scar on a growth ring of a Red Oak
When you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. –Isaiah 43:2
Here I am, as I am Holy, Human In this world, as it is Sacred, Profane Ever connected, in this wondrous luminous web Ever abiding, in the Heart of God. —Heather Ruce (Body Prayer)
Credits and References: Grammy and McKinley by Arthur T. LaBar. Used with permission. I Hear Her by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Fire scar in red oak by Eli Sagor. Used with permission
There it is again in the pit of my stomach, when I go to sleep at night, when I wake in the morning, the feeling that something’s wrong, something bad’s going to happen. Summertime, when I have nothing at all to worry about, I am troubled.
I don’t like this feeling born of illogical belief. I analyze, anticipate, normalize, distract, but it persists. She persists.
Finally, I see her. She wants my attention, wants me to stop looking at her through the rear-view mirror, stop trying to get her to be quiet, stop telling her she has nothing to be afraid of.
She wants me to stop the car, take her out of the car seat, and hold her.
The Mother in the core of my being awakens.
I pull over and turn off the engine.
Jesus turned and saw her. –Matthew 9:22 (NIV)
Credits and References: rainy glass by AЯMEN. Used with permission I See Her by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Rear-view Eyes by flightsaber. Used with permission
Smoke… too dense to go out; too unsafe to play ball. So we sat in the house. and did nothing at all.
All we could do was to sit! sit! sit! sit! and we did not like it. not one little bit. –Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat (adapted)
Then … we looked out and saw the hills again, blue sky and fluffy white clouds. We went outside and breathed in fresh air, opened the windows, and swept the dust off the deck.
I walked up the hill, and a deer stopped munching on grass. She looked up at me as if to ask, Where have you been?
I biked along the lake, pedalling hard because I could and marvelled at the expanse of indigo rippling sparkles of light.
Wind tickled leaves. They winked and waved, Welcome back, my friend.
Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. –Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
Credits and References: The Cat in the Hat photo by. Daniel X. O’Neil. Used with permission. Fresh Air by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Okanagan Rail Trail, Kalamalka Lake by pistachio. Used with permission.
Yesterday, we returned home from camping in the Kootenays. Today, I’m baking bread, and Fred is vacuuming out the car. I wish he could vacuum up the smoke and everyone were safe at home.
One hundred and four wildfires are actively burning in British Columbia. Five started in the last 24 hours. Now, those living in Summerland are being evacuated, and Peachland is on alert.
I feel the deep sadness of it all, the pain, grief, loss, and disorientation, and join the lament. “Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”
Waves of despair and hope, trust and fear, bad news and miracles wash over us all.
Remember Your promise to never leave or forsake us, to save us in times of trouble, to rescue us and bring us into a spacious place?
Save us now.
I will never leave you or abandon you. –Psalm 16:10 (adapted)
Credits and References: Bradley Creek fire by Liam Phair in the Castanet News. Save Us Now by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Quipituk Creek fire by Bowen Assman in the Castanet News.
Even now, Douglas Fir is filtering smoke from word, Kingfisher flies ahead, finds a perch, looks back and waits for you, guiding you in. As you paddle, pedal, saunter, sit Rain, Brook, Sapphire Sea sink you into deep silence within, where you can breathe again– breathe in God breathing in you breathing in God– where you know, without a doubt, you are held, where you know, without a doubt, you are always held, where you can look at what’s true and know you are safe, know, without a doubt, you’ll be okay.
But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you… –Job 12:7 (NIV)
Credits and References: Douglas fir by harum.koh. Used with permission. Even Now by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Belted Kingfisher by Andy Morffew. Used with permission.
