Message in Moss

Walking in my winter garden, I see some things I might not notice when the drab palette comes back to green and growth. This mossy stone ball reminds me of an organic global map and prompts me on this Valentine’s morning to love all my neighbors, including those beyond my daily shores. I am called to widen my view, open my mind. I pray to know more, in order to better love.

“Love follows knowledge.” ~ Thomas Aquinas

Settle Down

Where do you go when you feel troubled or unsettled?  Is there a place you find healing?  I don’t have need to go further than my back yard.  I open the kitchen door and go into sanctuary, to retreat, to respite.  I  sit on the stone wall surrounding my herb garden, crush a few leaves of rosemary or mint and breathe deeply.  Breath prayers rewarded with familiar fragrance bring to my attention the joy of growing things.  I walk the flagstone path between the roses and measure countless blessings.  I sit in stillness and wonder by the little pond and watch the silver flashes and ripples, gifts from fish and sunlight.  Quiet is broken only by trickling water and birdsong.  I witness the miracle of beginnings and rhythms as my eyes wander from new buds to the pregnant green of promised daffodils.  I am settled.

Advent Lament

Bobby Gross, in his book Living the Christian Year, speaks of giving ourselves permission for both song and groan during Advent. The waiting, the yearning, longing element present in this time were in my thoughts here.

Advent Lament

We wait without words
Behind windows covered with curtains of darkness
With shoulders too weary to shrug.
Wearing shawls of worry.

Behind windows covered with curtains of darkness
Worried, wandering, worn.
With shoulders too weary to shrug.
Sanctus Deus, Sanctus Fortis, Miserere Nobis.

Worried, wandering, worn,
Wearing shawls of worry.
Sanctus Deus, Sanctus Fortis, Miserere Nobis.
We wait without words.

Labyrinth Meditation

I  step on one stone which draws me outside in,

Centripetal propelling of self toward center.

One step, then another, a walk on a labyrinth path.

Seeking, finding

A center for refilling, refueling, refreshing.

Then reverse, return.

Stepping in an outward spiral,

The centrifuge which slowly spins and scatters this gathered grace,

Inside out.

   ~Mary Ann Parker, January 19, 2010