Sojourner

Sojourner

Warm welcome for warm welcome

You improve me with your presence

You are beautiful and strange

You rearrange

My priorities

Sojourner

You shine through

Time-weathered features

Your white flowing robes thin and frayed

Animated by joy

Inside you

Sojourner

Sage of motion

Traveling light

Your generous hand

Detaches from your beloveds 

Without resistance

You make me rich

And you are none the poorer

Sojourner

You laugh at danger

Fight without anger

Tenderly holding each day

Softly grasping life

But loosely

Knowing it could go away

Just like you

Sojourner

Warm farewell for warm farewell

Your mark is fair upon the skin of my soul

They say we will not pass this way again

But if we do

I hope I see you

The self is a layered thing. Digging down, there is no telling what you’ll find.

As I was remaining open and receptive, the word ‘sojourner’ came to me. I was not meditating at the time. I was working at my high pressure job. But it was toward the end of the day and my tired mind was relaxed and pliant. My thoughts were at a minimum. There was room for the word to come in. I would say I was in a semi-meditative state: empty, yet super-aware.

With the word came the image of a smiling person of indeterminate lineage – perhaps Semitic like my ancestors – dressed in robes made from a naturally light colored cloth. They had a weathered appearance, like someone who had spent a lot of their life outdoors. Their eyes were bright: intelligent and perceptive with a twinkle of merriment in them. Their hair was covered with a kind of a hood that was part of their robe.

When drawing the sojourner I was once again in a semi-meditative state, reaching through personal and racial memory to this soul who once touched me without touching. As best I could I made representation of this special person who touched my soul in another life.

There is a story of a man who sat in ritual pain at the door of his tent and welcomed the angels of God. There is another story of a man who visited the great sojourner family and exclaimed at the beauty of their tents.

What is the beauty of a tent? True, a tent is a mobile living space. One could make it nice, moving always perfectly so that there would be just enough stuff to be luxurious without there being too much stuff to carry. But is that beautiful?

I think the beauty of a tent comes from the person or persons who live within, and the beauty of the person also comes from within. Deep inside is where beauty is made and maintained. Beauty is not skin deep. Beauty is as deep as the soul.

The sojourner is temporary: here today, gone tomorrow. Yet is that really any different than any one of us? We are all transients upon this plane, mere visitors who must, unlike the sojourner, leave everything behind when we move on. The true sojourner leaves without a trace, save the gifts they gave. In grace they come and with grace they go.

Have you seen their tents? They are beautiful.