Reading the Psalms: Part 4, i carry your heart with me

After listening to my class on the Psalms, with my encouragement to "stay romantic," Jana's mind when to a poem by e.e. cummings.

When Jana and I were falling in love, those many years ago, e.e. cummings' poem "i carry your heart with me" was a poem we shared because it captured our feelings for each other. During my class, Jana's mind went back to that poem as I described the Psalms as romantic love songs to God. Jana looked the poem up again and read the words, but this time reading the poem as a prayer to God. Jana shared this with me the next morning and asked me to listen to the poem again, but as a prayer. Both Jana and I were struck by how powerful the poem works as a prayer.

Here's "i carry your heart with me." Pray it as a prayer and see what you think:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
                                                            i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Maybe this prayer doesn't work for everyone, but for Jana and I praying words was a profoundly moving experience.