Today's Lenten Meditation: For When People Ask

For When People Ask

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I want a word that means okay

And not okay

More than that: a word that means

devastated and stunned with joy.

I want the word that says I feel it all all at once.

The heart is not like a songbird singing one note at a time,

more like a Tuvan throat singer able to sing both

a drone and simultaneously two or three harmonies high above it—

a sound, the Tuvans say, that gives the impression of wind swirling among rocks.

The heart understands swirl,

how the churning of opposite feelings weaves through us like an insistent breeze leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves.

Blesses us with paradox so we might walk more openly into this world so rife with devastation, this world so ripe with joy.

The preceding prayer was one of my favorites from the Sacred Ground Circle I participated in in 2025.  The Sacred Ground Circle is a film- and readings-based dialogue series on race, grounded in faith.  Small groups of 8 to 10 people in eleven sessions are invited to walk through chapters of America’s history of race and racism, while weaving in threads of family story, economic class, and political and regional identity. 

Sacred Ground is part of Becoming Beloved Community, The Episcopal Church’s long-term commitment to racial healing, reconciliation and justice in our personal lives, our ministries and our society.  The series is open to all but is especially designed to help white people to talk with other white people about these hard issues while grounded in our call to faith, hope and love.

 ~ Jan D