If you follow my www.acottagebythesea.net blog you’ll know that I’m about to go on a pilgrimage to sacred sites in Ireland with some other women. I’ve written my top ten prayer list to take along on the journey. Oh, I’ll pray for others and for other situations, but I have chosen ten people to “pray without ceasing” for during the entire trip. It’s the way I always do it. I don’t how consistent I’ll be about blogging but I’ll do my best. Into the Realm of the Goddess: A Women’s Pilgrimage to Sacred Sites in Ireland Counties Meath, Kildare and Limerick April 11 - 17, 2011 LED BY JEAN BOLEN A pilgrimage is an inner experience, an outer journey to another world. It is an Archetype symbolizing a search for spiritual centeredness and wholeness. It captures our imagination and unconsciously pulls us to separate ourselves from ordinary life and place for an encounter with the sacred. Read More Two of my “God lessons” have got to be about patience and stay-out-of-other-people’s-business. Well, I’m getting practice in both as I wait to hear from my sister about how my brother-in-law is doing. I have to let go of any “shoulds” about how communication should go. I have to honor their privacy and time frame. As the saying goes, “It’s not about me,” which is a huge reoccurring lesson for me. There is always grace in these lessons. I am stripped of everything I might want to do, and am left with the one thing I can do. Pray. Not knowing what’s going on clears my mind and opens my heart to prayer. Amazing grace!! (I just called and blessings of all blessings, my brother-in-law answered the phone. Now it’s time for prayers of gratitude.) This is my last full day at the cottage, my last sunrise, my last walk on the beach. As I watched the sunrise this morning it came over me that the sun has shown me God’s faithfulness during these past five months. I have begun every day watching. “Keep awake,” Jesus tells me. I’ve watched on mornings like this one when the sun has risen as an outward sign of visible grace. And I’ve watched on mornings thick with fog, like yesterday, when all I could count on was faith.
It’s easy to take the sun for granted, which I must admit I have done almost all my life. But these cottage days have given me the grace to pay attention to God, and to give God my attention. God’s gifts are so obvious once we say “Yes,” to God, once we choose to see life through a spiritual lens. Prayer is very real to me today as I pray for someone I love, someone near and dear to me. Most of the usual shoulds, formalities, and am-I-doing-it-rights ? have just disappear. I am praying from the heart; it’s all authentic. My 78 year old brother-in-law has been in and out of the hospital for the past two months and is back in as I write. I suppose that his particular age and life stage has some bearing on my prayer, but I don’t seem to be having that kind of conversation with God. In fact there aren’t many of words in my prayer. I just find myself picturing him, my sister and their children in a circle of light and asking that God surround them with peace and serenity, whatever that might mean. That’s all I want to say today. Have you every noticed that people who aren’t God people, who don’t believe in God, are the first to explain and describe what God does and doesn’t do and what God cares and doesn’t care about? For example, when David Ortiz crosses home plate, lifts up his arms up and looks to the sky, I hear, “God doesn’t care if Ortiz hits a homerun.” When I say that I’m praying for someone, I hear, “Well, that may make you feel better.” It seems impossible (and fearful) for those people who want to intellectualize God to accept, much less understand, the idea of a personal relationship with God. Then there is this one. “The Church has made a mess of thing. I want no part of religion.” Or, “Look at all the wars that have been fought over God; what kind of a God is that.” All at once organized religion and God are lumped together as one. These theological issues have been with us through the centuries; volumes written; arguments made; thesis nailed to church doors; heretics tortured and killed. Part of me says that I ought to work up a few succinct responses. But another voice says that there is little point in countering someone’s definition of God with my experience of God. We can’t have a discussion if we’re operating out of different paradigms. Ah, that gives me an idea. Maybe here’s my response: “ That may be the way you define God; I experience God differently.” If that ends the conversation, so be it. If it opened up a conversation, I’ll just know that God is working in God’s mysterious ways. Esther de Wall in A Life-Giving Way; A Commentary of the Rule of St. Benedict, says that “Humility makes no sense if it is regarded as an end in itself; it is a way of discipline.” This is a difficult, although welcoming, concept for me. I’d like to take on humility, get it under my belt and move on just as I do many other things in my life. But of course, faith isn’t like that; faith isn’t a task to be check off. I notice that there are no faith books in the self-help section for the book store. Humility is probably one of my life-long issues, which is humbling in and of itself. In fact admitting that out loud is even more humbling. I have the sense that humility is about truth telling, which is about taking the mask off. This is tough work, but de Waal offers three approaches, gleaned from Benedict, which I am trying to make my own. First humility is deeply embedded in Scripture. Second, this is an interior journey, and here I quote extensively from de Waal. · “This interior journey is a process that will never end, yet one that does not necessarily involve the familiar pattern of movement toward some successful and predetermined goal. I see the steps as indicators carrying me forward, yet as I come to each I never leave any behind, for I simultaneously need all of them all the time. Perhaps I should think more of a spiraling and never-ending inward process, a process that will go on until death. The third is that this undertaking, this embracing of humility, must include all of me, mind, body, spirit. It must be part of everything I think, say and do. I’m reminded of Mary’s confusion when asked to bear the child of God. Luke’s gospel says that she was afraid and perplexed, and wondered, “How can this be?” It seemed more than she could bear, but bear it she did. Throughout the Gospels Mary’s inward process interfaces with Jesus’ life, which again brings me back to Scripture. A good place to begin. |
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