Be Hospitable, Even to the Stranger in You.

When David prays “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (Psalm 139:23), there’s a bit of irony to it. That’s because in the previous verses he’s been praying out his violence and hatred (“I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies” Ps 139:22).

I wonder if it might have been helpful for him, and us, to do some more work on integrating the fragmented pieces of his own heart. In fact, maybe that’s what he was doing in prayer that day he wrote down Psalm 139, and the whiplash that we read is actually the hard work of starting to put the dissonant pieces back together.

Today, as part of that work for yourself, use this prophetic poem as a sort of ‘prayer of integration’ - an invitation to your own soul to be put back together. Invite the Holy Spirit to knit and weave and heal and bless you as you pray through these words.

Be taught now, among the trees and rocks,

how the discarded is woven into shelter,

learn the way things hidden and unspoken

slowly proclaim their voice in the world.

Find that far inward symmetry

to all outward appearances, apprentice

yourself to yourself, begin to welcome back

all you sent away, be a new annunciation,

make yourself a door through which

to be hospitable, even to the stranger in you.

• From David Whyte’s Coleman’s Bed