Weekly Inspiration 9/17/2026

Something will come of our prayer. The scriptures record numerous occasions where, because of prayer, God changes course, and something different happens. But there is no formula for how, when, or if this happens. More often it is we who will change because of our prayer.

Br. Curtis Almquist

Society of Saint John the Evangelist

Legacy

by Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Walking in the woods,

thinking of other things, so,

not really in the woods,

I traveled on a path

that sooner or later will disappear,

among trees that will outlive me.

What difference will I make

to these trees, or this path, or

anything in the world, now or hence?

Pondering my nothingness,

bereft of legacy, I walked,

still elsewhere.

But then that blank was interrupted

by a bird call, unfamiliar,

sparkling, totally without reason.

A few trilly little grace notes

and one clear bell tone,

some kind of prayer or love song

I stopped. I looked. A flash of brown

may have been it, or a leaf. Then

stillness. Just woods, with a bird in it

Something flowed up in me,

a spring of clear joy, burbling.

I was back in the woods.

Not the song, but the bird itself,

merely being its little brown being,

singing, hidden, given.

You never know how your mere being

lights someone's world, brings them back.

I watch now, for what speaks.

The little villages of moss on trees,

the kid who rides his squeaky trike

in the driveway of the old grey house.