One of the blessings I reclaim whenever Di and I can take an extended break is the generosity of God's grace. It saturates Mother Earth and fills the hearts and minds of many with awe and gratitude. Sitting in the calming silence and solitude of our current retreat house on the banks of Lake Gardner, the waves gently lap the shore and refresh my soul with hints of Eden. Hiking along the rugged banks of the North Atlantic coastline as the sun breaks through the fog and waves crash against the stones on shore is restorative in a whole other way. There is peace as well as wild energy. Serenity alongside exuberance, too. As I often muse: there really IS a time a time and a season for every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to throw away; a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to keep silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace. (Ecclesiastes 3)
This passage of Scripture is an old and time-tested friend. It keeps me grounded in the sacred paradox of the holy where celebration and sorrow embrace. I hear the wisdom of Barbara Brown Taylor chanting in my heart:
Here is the testimony of faith: darkness is not dark to God; the night is as bright as the day... I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.
Being here reminds me that a healthy and holy life involves striking a balance between the light and the dark, the challenges and the comforts, the songs and the silence, as well as the fullness of community and the emptiness of the desert. In the short time that we've been away from home, the lake house has been shrouded in an impenetrable fog and two days later slathered in sunlight. It helps me honor the quest for balance by feeling the depth and breadth of grace. It's all too easy for me to slip into the semi-consciousness of routine. And while stability has its place, walking into the cold, wet mist before arriving on a massive rock by the ocean that's been baking all day in sunlight is an encounter with incarnation. It's a vibrant and embodied prayer that bathes my flesh in the words of faith. I hear the soft voice of Cynthia Bourgeault say:
Find the place where your feet know how to walk and follow your own trail home. The way to your heart begins with your feet on the ground, quietly but intensely present... (this is prelude to the promise of meditation that) rests on the wager that if you can simply break the tyranny of your ordinary awareness, the rest will begin to unfold itself. At first when you begin a practice of meditation, it feels like a place you go to. You may think of it as “my inner sanctuary” or “my place apart with God.” But as the practice becomes more and more established in you so that this inner sanctuary begins to flow out into your life, it becomes more and more a place you come from.
Such sacred solidarity feels woefully absent in popular culture right now. And yet even the cruelties of this era hold an invitation: become grounded in the totality of grace that offers us food for the journey, whether that's loving another being or resisting the repression, kleptocracy, and fear of this present darkness. Living into the grief as well as the joy of this season is an act of cultivating humility, too. It preserves a measure of our sanity as we dance lightly each day without ever knowing what's coming next. I think of the late Elie Wiesel's NY Times op ed for Yom Kippur. After restating his anguish and anger over the apparent absence of the Sacred during the Holocaust - including subsequent decades of grief and despair - Wiesel sings to the Lord (in my paraphrase): ok, I still don't get it - and I am still furious and heartbroken - but what else can I do in this madness except... dance. His final novel, A Mad Desire to Dance, presents this holistic paradox where dance is a "a metaphor for our yearning for joy, connection, and a sense of normalcy in the face of overwhelming despair." Or as Zorba says so simply at the close of the movie: "Dance? Did you say dance, my boy?" During this "down" time, I am reacquainting myself with a prayer book crafted by Fr. Ed Hays: Prayers for the Domestic Church. I was drawn to this one this morning:
Blessed are You, Lord our God, for you have created a wide and wonderful world in which we can travel We ask Your blessing upon us as we leave for our journey. Be our ever-near companion, O Holy Guide of Travelers, and spread the road before us with beauty and adventure.
May all the highways ahead of us be free of hard and evil. May we be accompanied by Your holy spirits, Your angelic messengers, as were the holy ones of days past. On this trip may we take with us as part of our traveling equipment a heart wrapped in wonder with which to rejoice in all that we shall meet.
Along with the clothing of wonder, may we have room in our luggage for a mystic map by which we can find the invisible meanings of the events of this journey - of possible disappointments and delays, of possible breakdowns and rainy day troubles. Always awake to Your Sacred Presence and to Your divine compassionate love, may we see in all that happens to us, in the beautiful and the bad, the mystery of Your holy plan.
May the blessings of Your name - Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit - be upon us throughout this trip and bring us home again in safety and peace. Amen.
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