ome new prayers from the Community of Iona (below) when I get an idea about a song - Loch Lomond - that we're playing with for an up-coming TV show. I've known the song in its bowdlerized contemporary version - you know, "You take the high road and I'll take the low road..." - but this has often felt like a bastardization of some much more mournful.Cut to an Internet search which, as many of you already know, can be a total "time slut" as my man (the original computer geek/techie) in Tucson likes to say... and he's right: before you know it I'm listening to NPR stories on this sad song, searching down tangents about my family's clan in Scotland and even portraits of Bonnie Prince Charlie. (All while I am supposed to be in prayer, mind you, which should be all the evidence you need about my "eclectic and sometimes undisciplined commitment to prayer" as a spiritual director once noted.) Check it out: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4766584
And WHAT should I discover (besides tons of fascinating trivia that will forever
be in my mind for no discernibly good reason) but a portrait of said dear old prince... that looks EXACTLY like my late sister, mother and some of her children. (One of my daughters, too.) Now we've known for sometime that the Mescall side of the family - my maternal ancestors - were transplanted Scots who went to Ireland and then to America but we wondered who they looked like, you know?
be in my mind for no discernibly good reason) but a portrait of said dear old prince... that looks EXACTLY like my late sister, mother and some of her children. (One of my daughters, too.) Now we've known for sometime that the Mescall side of the family - my maternal ancestors - were transplanted Scots who went to Ireland and then to America but we wondered who they looked like, you know? My father's folk ALL have that distinctive Scots thing going - tall, thin faces, long legs with that extended middle that is prone to go round with too much brew - rather like Billy Connolly my wife likes to tell me. (When we first watched, "Mrs. Brown" with Connolly and Judi Dentch and he runs into a loch for a quick dip after tossing aside his kilts, she turned and gasped, "N
OW I know where your people come from!") And when we wandered around Scotland for a month a number of years back, we saw lots of mini-Me's and tons of Scots beauties that resembled daughter number two - but the other side of the family was conspicuously absent - until now!
OW I know where your people come from!") And when we wandered around Scotland for a month a number of years back, we saw lots of mini-Me's and tons of Scots beauties that resembled daughter number two - but the other side of the family was conspicuously absent - until now!A mystery has been solved - I showed this portrait to my honey this morning and she, too, burst out laughing, shouting that Bonnie Prince Charlies is a total dead ringer for that side of the clan. Oh, thank you, Lord, for the Internet I sighed... only to realize that, once again, my prayer time had been frittered away with things fascinating - and sometimes even useful - but not really prayerful. Centering prayer master, Thomas Keating has observed that even with careful discipline and practice our minds can run away from us with many good and even healing ideas during prayer. The challenge is to let them pass rather than follow...
... and that has been my history with prayer: I have Monkey Mind and can find thousands of good reasons to feed it rather than sit with it patiently and let it slow down. Maybe you know what I mean... So, I'm back to the Iona prayers to read:
God says: I will woo you and lead you into the wilderness and speak to your heart. Blessed be God for ever...God of all my life, I lay it 
before you... and nothing is hidden. You are before me, Lord and you are behind. You are around me, God, and you are within. So I bring the faith that is in me and the doubt - I bring the joy that is in me and the sorrow - I bring the hope that is in me and the despair - and I bring the hurts that I carry as well as the hurts that I have caused.
before you... and nothing is hidden. You are before me, Lord and you are behind. You are around me, God, and you are within. So I bring the faith that is in me and the doubt - I bring the joy that is in me and the sorrow - I bring the hope that is in me and the despair - and I bring the hurts that I carry as well as the hurts that I have caused.And to them all - the faiths and doubts, joys and sorrows, hopes and despairs, hurts carried and caused - I join myself with sisters and brothers of faith and doubt, joy and sorrow...
Do not cast me asway from your presence... restore to me the joy of liberation and sustain in me a willing spirit. For you have shown me the paths that lead to life and your presence will fill me with joy.
The liturgy ends like this: Gathered and scattered, God is with us - In suffering and hope, God is with us - Now and always, God is with us. And so we go... Nick Drakes takes it home:
3 comments:
Ok, for the record it is time "suck" not time "slut". I don't know if the one word triggered the other in your memory or it was my mumbling. Now on the matter of the picture--I have seen the future and it is now time to let the gray come out to give you that rock star/alien/"strangers finding you on google search" kind of look. I don't know, I look at the picture and hear "Slow ride-da da-take it easy." And then I think of the Barnyard cartoon with the farm animals riding motorcycles with Slow Ride in the background. Then that makes me think of Chimps riding on a Segway ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp9Gm-aRe5A ) and that makes me think of my kids laughing in a way that you can only laugh around people you love. In those moments, time passes quickly and you feel like a slut that can't get enough of your kid's love. And time doesn't suck that is for sure. Laughs like that get from silly You Tube clips or wacky UK portraits lead you off to the ends of cyberspace. I don't know, I am not so sure that monkey mind is always bad. Sometimes it is more like God holding out carrots for you until you get to where you need to be.
Chimpanzee Riding A Segway
Chimpanzee Riding A Segway
Chimpanzee Riding A Segway
Or maybe some monkey mind isn't good for you.
Hey, you got the good calling card plan with God, not me. I guess it is just important that we all use up all our minutes.
Ooops... fascinating Freudian slip, yes? And I have come to accept my monkey mind - it is often a blessing - but sometimes I have to go in the other direction, too. Thanks for your words. They mean a lot to me.
Hey, check out "Boogie Boogie Hedgehog," from the same guy who did Chimps riding on a Segway-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK0l2tqFDvM&NR=1
Post a Comment