Jeremiah 5:21-22. Listen, O foolish, senseless people – you with the eyes that do not see and the ears that do not listen – have you no respect at all for me? The Lord God asks. How can it be that you don’t even tremble in my presence? I set the shorelines of the world by perpetual decrees, so that the oceans, though they toss and roar, can never pass those bounds. Isn’t such a God to be feared and worshipped?

I set the shorelines of the world by perpetual decrees, so

are not our own edges that

contain our energy and keep the

outside forces at bay like shores of the oceans

whose boundaries are always in motion? Even though

the waters remain, they

can be as gentle ripples or as towering waves that toss

giant logs like toothpicks; and

when our inner seas roar

and our own tides ebb, we can

remember the seashore: never

settled. In the most deadened times that come to pass

we can pray for the return of energy and the will to live, those

gifts that come through grace, which has no bounds.

 

Sandra Price

“The Edge” published in

 “Looking for Home: Women Writing About Exile”

Edited by Deborah Keenan and Roseann Lloyd

Milkweed Editions 1990