Our Wilderness
 The First Sunday in Lent


Somewhere, sometime
each one of us
takes an unchosen path
through the wilderness.
Not the rocky, broken land,
nor the frigid night winds,
nor the terrible beasts,
nor the parching thirst
will frighten us most.
But it is the loneliness,
the utter fear that
we are forgotten
and that nothing makes sense--
this is the barrenness
where we finally cry out,
pray for love
to find us.
And then
He comes.

--Timothy Haut, February, 2013