St. Francis of the Elements:
A Meditation.
Brother Air:
Francis,
you were a feather born upon the breath of God; dancing with the unseen and manifesting the invisible in your skyborn steps, inviting all to see again the Divine dance into which they are blessed born...
Francis,
you were an Autumnal leaf gilded by grace's sunshine and shower; now unafraid to let go of anything that would keep you from the freedom of flight and happy to journey to the dissolution of all in offering...
Francis,
you were a snowflake; unique and Heaven sent, you kissed the earth lightly and woke us to her own beauty and wisdom, long lost in our lies...
Francis,
you were a lightening strike; shattering a clear sky and bringing the Divine storm that renews and creates, bringing beginning and drawing a new Spring from stuffy stalled hearts...
Brother Fire:
Francis,
you were a spark; struck by Grace from the Flint of heart's hardness, yearning for the dry straw of sin to be kindled in kindness consuming...
Francis,
you were a hearth on a Winter's night; leeching the indifference from our cold ecclesial bones, welcoming all to sit in storied circle and be one in warmth...
Francis,
you were a forest fire; consuming all in the conflagration of your consecrated love, incandescent within the light of Grace flaming through your burning bones...
Sister Water:
Francis,
you were the dew of dawn; appearing to announce a new morning of magic when beasts and birds become brothers and sisters and our tongues are loosed at last in Eden's song...
Francis,
you were a sweet spring; burbling with joy that knows no end, offering to all a deep draught of the Divine, the only answer to soul's thirst...
Francis,
you were a mountain stream; singing your silver song upon a pilgrim path, refreshing worn feet and charming the divine dance from stony hearts...
Francis,
you were an ocean's drop; borne upon the tide of love you yielded to the pull of prayer and lost yourself in the sacred sea of His resurrection gaze and became yourself in unbecoming all you were not...
Sister Mother Earth:
Francis,
you were a grain of dust upon the road; herald and holy, you dwelt in truth's humility, barefoot upon the brown earth, fading at distance into the truth of her embrace...
Francis,
you were a stone; becoming stillness you yielded yourself and were chisel formed into a foundation, while still a friar free to rest upon the rock of faith...
Francis,
you were a healing herb; condensing in yourself the medicine of first divine in-breathing when all that is, is named as good, for reminding us of redemption's remedy you gave root and leaf and flower and fruit for all...
Francis,
you were bird and beast; all found their friend in you and revealed their inner teaching of praise at your prayer; wondering to hear in you the voice long lost from creature's canticle sung by all that is, as you drew even tears from those who by Adam's naming had felt their brother-sisterhood of being lost to them until your call...
Francis,
you are beyond all elemental being now, plunged sainted and seraphic into Love's fire of origin and union and ending, all in one eternal communion of praise, where God is all in all and all are one. Pouring out upon those who are brave enough to follow your bloody footprints upon the Gospeled path an ever flowing fountain of peace and joy and brother beckoning us ever onward, ever upward, from earth's embrace, to sing with wind and fire and water our way into the Divine Dance of Being!
