Kenosis: Divinely Found, Lost, & Losing

A Homily Poem by Don Erickson

“I once was lost but now, I’m found”



The woods near my home lost me.
I went searching for some solace there,
For some peace then amiss
amid teenage angst and anguish,
For comfort from the pine floor
softening my steps and heart.

Maybe I found the solace, comfort,
and peace I sought.

But the woods, like the Lord, some say,
gave and then took these gifts away,

Losing me, hiding a path to find home,

Taking solace, peace, comfort,
leaving their antonyms.

Not solace, but fear,
Not peace, but anxiety,
Not comfort, but close to tears,

For the dark was not far off.
The low sun no longer streamed
down through trees,
my unrestrained shouts for help unheard.

Lost. Have you ever been lost? Really lost?

I once was.
Then found the way back home somehow,
before twilight faded out.

But the distress of the sun going down
with me alone in that cavern of trees,
that memory remains.

The woods hiding me, my yells,
the scents and sounds of panic,
that stays and is easily recalled.

Lost. Have you ever felt lost? Really lost?

“I found my way lost in You”



Sometimes,
it seems to me,
I lose my self within my self,

leaving me lost inside,
inside the self replete with weeds,
weeds swallowing me.

What if, as Sakyamuni said,
the self is a mirage,
one we must move past
on the way to somewhere else?

What if heaven is really
the self hidden in God,
in the holiness of holy other,
in the sacred bonds
of sheltering love that never lets us go.

What if the home we seek
is not the singular self,
but selves interrelating.

Hear your people coming to find you.
They’re shouting your name.

“You are my hiding place”

My mom would sometimes sing this song.

“You are my hiding place.
You always fill my heart with songs of deliverance.
Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you.”

We sang it in church, too.

Deliverance and trust beyond fear,
How the kid in me longs for this still.

Deliver me, Lord, from the island desert of self.
Deliver me from the delusion of you and me separate.
Deliver me from the “I am” that ignores thee,
from the “ego” that gazes past the sacred next to me.
Deliver me from the lie of self-reliance
knowing I need thee so, thee in others,
the grace found here and now.

“At the table of grace, the cup's never empty”

Grace. All in the end gives way to Grace.
This eternal truth summons my praise.
Let me praise the grace of a loving God.
Let me praise the grace of the earth and her sky.
Let me praise the grace of parents nurturing the next.
Let me praise the grace of accompaniment along the way.
Let me praise the grace that pervades the law of love.

“Lose yourself in the Music, the Moment”

The summer after seminary ended,
my master’s degree secured,
I unloaded a moving truck filled with
office furniture for the school where I interned.

One step rearward, my foot slipped,
And I fell a few feet onto pavement, back first,
the wind hard-knocked out of me.

Those who saw it sought to comfort
as I caught my breath and breathed,
They checked on my post-fall condition.
I said, I’m okay, though shocked a bit.

I retreated into the school,
Headed downstairs to a room
where a ready-to-resonate piano stood.
I began to play to ease my frayed, afraid mind

What led me to do this, I still do not know.
Maybe retreating to play or pray to God is where the healing is.
Maybe hiding in the Lord is how we resist getting lost.
Maybe losing the self in Christ is when fulfillment begins.

For Grace is a hiding place.
I lose myself therein,
in the moment that is God.
I find the self in communion and safe.

The way will wind out before me,
Twilight will bow to the moonlight in full.
The moon will loom as bright as the sun
and guide me home to a familiar place,

the realm of love where divine fire sooths.
Solace, comfort, peace, was there all along.
Selfless, I’m home. I belong with you.
Kenosis till filled, it was always the goal.