Below is a poem written by Father Thomas Keating who was a significant voice in the Centering/Contemplative Prayer movement until his death in 2018. In the last years of life, he wrote several poems that expressed what he was experiencing with God. Articulation was beyond the ability of prose so he wrote poems … in Ephesians 3, the Apostle Paul prays that we would experience the love of God that is beyond words … I’m guessing that is why poetry was the only option for Father Keating.

I watch the seductive dance of everyday life 

But the desire to join has ceased.

Two crucial questions arise: 

Where are you?

Who are you? 

Nowhere is my destination 

And no one is my identity 

My daily bread is powerlessness 

Temptations can be overwhelming 

God is every hope of help 

And if this opens up within me 

I am falling, falling 

Plunging into nonexistence 

Is this annihilation? 

Or is it the path to the silent love that we are? 

As the false self disappears 

The true self is born 

Thus the dance of human nature with That Which Is 

Takes on a wholly new perspective 

And those who partake in it 

Are overwhelmed with laughter 

Too deep to be heard.