Today's Word

Today’s Word: Bridge

Steve · September 21, 2013 · 1 Comment

Bridges — whether a short footbridge over a small creek or a majestic span across a treacherous bay — get us to places we cannot get on our own or at least not without extraordinary human effort. Without the footbridge, we run and jump across the creek, hoping we reach the other side without getting a little dirty. With it, we take a few effortless steps while perhaps stopping halfway across to view the trickling water below. Without the bridge across the bay, we plunge into the cold water and sink or swim while praying the sharks are off on vacation somewhere in warmer waters. With the bridge, it’s a quick drive and maybe a few bucks at the tollbooth.

Like jumping across the creek or swimming in shark-infested waters, getting through life purely on our own power is certainly possible. People do it all the time. But our faith in a compassionate and knowing God offers us a bridge over troubled waters, someone to stand in the gap for us when we find ourselves at the end of a path with no way forward. As we stand looking over this sudden expanse in our life — whether a minor gap or a major plunge — we know somewhere deep that we have choices.

Unwilling or incapable of asking for help, we must either turn back at this point or risk the cold and dangerous waters far below, not knowing if we’ll survive the jump, the deep water or the lingering dark shapes circling and waiting. Or we can take that first step out into thin air, secure in our faith in the bridge builder, confident that our footfall will find solid ground and a way across to the other side. This is our faith, that we keep walking, even when we cannot at first see the way.

Ask yourself in silence: Where do I need a bridge in my life right now? Do I have the faith to ask for it?

Today’s Word: Peace

Steve · September 20, 2013 · 1 Comment

Such an overused, overworked word is peace. Whether between nations, between individuals or within us, peace does not come easy, quickly or simply. Peace, William Butler Yeats wrote in his poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, “comes dropping slow, dropping from the veils of morning to where the cricket sings.” The peace of mind, soul and heart that we seek within ourselves takes its time and comes, not upon demand like so much else in our lives, but when we slowly and deliberately open ourselves to its possibility as a gift. It is a treasured commodity, a gift of highest worth, and so we must seek and work for peace. We must apply ourselves to peace. We must leave ourselves open and wait for peace.

Peace, like God, is ours for the taking, for the acceptance, for the willingness on our part to seek it out and find it. For most of us, that means seeking time in silence, whether in the quiet of a small room or chapel or in the hush of nature. Yeats sought this peace on his beloved Irish island, where he knew it would be quiet enough to “hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore…in the heart’s deep core.” We need to get away, to hear the water lapping, to listen to the quiet voice that whispers in our heart’s deep core. For we cannot be fully ourselves, cannot be fully aware of all that is present in our lives, without this peace that comes by abandoning ourselves to the silence of prayer and time alone with God.

Ask yourself in silence: When and where will I make time today to listen to my heart’s deep core?

Today’s Word: Dust

Steve · September 18, 2013 · 2 Comments

According to Genesis, we’re supposed to remember that we are made of dust and to dust we will return. It’s a humbling, earthy thought, a reminder that our physical selves are little more than the stuff of earth. And according to Carl Sagan and other such trustworthy scientists, the dust we’re made of is actually stardust or “star stuff,” as Sagan once said. Every single atom in our bodies, it seems — including the calcium in our bones, the carbon in our genes, and the iron in our blood — was created in a star “billions and billions” of years ago. We live today because stars died, and I’m cool with that. The science of the earth is a reinforcement of my faith in a Creator-God, not a deterrent.

But we’re also more than this very old stardust because we are more than the physical bodies given to us so we can walk the earth and marvel at the beauty of it all. The Psalmist says that we have been made “little less than gods” and reminds us that God is “mindful” of us. We are, in fact, more “souls with bodies” than we are “bodies with souls,” although I realize that’s a bit of a word game. As believers, we are stuck with this duality of being both animal and beloved by God. Both natural and supernatural. A being of the earth and a child of God. Dust in the wind and heir of the Creator. In faith, we can embrace the two dimensions of our being and stand in awe and worship of a God who knows our dusty selves and loves us anyway.

Ask yourself in silence: Where’s my home? Do I feel more like a soul or a body?

Today’s Word: Clay

Steve · September 16, 2013 · 4 Comments

pot — Like a river through the soft earth. SJG photo

The thing about potters and their clay is that it’s all about relationship. A little pinch here and a fledgling pot becomes something entirely different. A little more pressure or a repositioning of the potter’s hands on the ever-spinning vessel and the clay takes on a new shape. Hold a knife to the still-soft creation and spirals cut into the body like a river through the soft earth. Relationship. No pot without the potter, no need for the potter without the pot.

And so as we circle around to begin each day anew, we must ask ourselves: are we open to the touch of the potter? Do we allow ourselves to be shaped — manipulated — by the One who made us and is continuing to make us? Are we willing to surrender our self-conceived idea of purpose and “shape” to the will of the master artisan who knows us better than we know ourselves? Are we willing to say, “yes, I thought I was going to be this…but perhaps I am being changed and I am become something else?”

Ask yourself in silence: All the questions above!

Congratulations to my friend and loyal reader Kathleen Matson of Massachusetts, who has just launched her own blog of daily reflections! Check out her site, Heavenly Light.

Today’s Word: Labyrinth

Steve · September 15, 2013 · 8 Comments

Yesterday, while at an ecumenical day of reflection for spiritual directors, I had the opportunity to walk a labyrinth at Mercy Center in St. Louis. I’ve heard and read about labyrinths, but this was my first time experiencing one. Unlike an English garden maze, which I have experienced (and it was frustrating and a little scary…) a labyrinth offers only one path and it’s not out to trick you or get you lost. There are no high hedges to hem you in, only parallel rows of white rocks and a mulched walkway. There’s only one way in and one way out. So setting my own pace and simply following the path, I was moved — however rambling — toward the labyrinth’s peaceful center under a tree.

There’s nothing inherently mystical or sacred about a labyrinth, for it’s the intention and attention of the walker that makes the path holy. But I found it to be a gentle, guiding tool for meditation on the movement of God in my life, a meaningful melding of the spiritual and the physical.

labyrinth1 — Labyrinth at Mercy Center, St. Louis. SJG photo

It is, of course, an apt metaphor for our spiritual journey, for only by continuing to walk and trusting the path we are on and its Creator can we reach the center where God waits for us, patient as a friend and lover. And like the labyrinth, God is not out to trick us or set traps for us, for when following the way of Christ (“I am the way, the truth and the life…”) we do not need to worry about which way to turn, as long as we keep to the path. The call of the labyrinth, like the call of God, is to quiet our minds, to trust our steps and to move ever forward to the center, the unmoving mover of all.

Ask yourself in silence: Do I trust the path I am walking? If not, am I on the wrong path?