Week Two, Day Four Peace

I invite you into the prayer practice of Visio Divina by focusing and framing first your breath.

Breathe in to the count of three...exhale to the count of six or seven.

Breathe in the One who splashes with the waves...exhale those heavy rocks we carry with us.  Breathe in the One who longs to help us bear the load...exhale the voices that say, "I can do it all by myself!"

Breathe in relationship with others that adds meaning...exhale isolation.

Breathe in the blue sky above...breathe out stormy seas churning in your soul.

Look at the image and let your eyes stay with the very first thing that you see. Keep your attention on that one part of the image that first catches your eye. Try to keep your eyes from wandering to other parts of the picture. Breathe deeply and let yourself gaze at that part of the image for a minute or so. 

Next, make a list of what you see - from the big to the small - and ask yourself the deeper question of why?

Now, ponder what big rocks are part of the landscape of your soul right now?  Where are holy waves crashing into what seems on the surface to be immovable and unchangeable stones, but over time those waves will whittle away at the rock?  Reflect on the image for a minute or so.

Consider the following questions:

What emotions does this image evoke in you?

What does the image stir up in you, bring forth in you?

Does this image lead you into an attitude of prayer? If so, let these prayers take form in you. Write them down if you desire.

Reflection

I love rocks.  Big rocks...tiny rocks...pebbles.  I love the different shades and hues, the colors of creation that nature paints on the gray granite.  I love touching the coolness of a boulder and feeling the pulse of centuries contained within every single stone.  I love the different shapes and sizes of rocks.

While in Alaska, I found myself on a couple occasions stacking rocks.  Which brings me to my early Christmas present for you (no, not a fruit cake) but bonus pictures!

This one was taken at the Shrine of St. Theresa, where countless others had stacked rocks, and I left my fingerprints on these rocks.

These two rock stacks were on the last day of our trip at Exit Glacier.  When the glacier recedes, as many (too many) of them are doing in our world today, as the ice melts and evaporates, what the glacier leaves is known as an outwash plain.

I know!  Bonus pictures AND a science lesson, you were not expecting that were you?  You thought I would just post another picture of a cute puppy!

These rocks were once part of Exit Glacier, caught up in the constant movement (glaciers are always moving and transforming - more on that another day), and were shaped by the ice/water/evaporation over the years.

Stacking rocks can be a prayer practice.  It takes patience and persistence because, unlike the blocks of my childhood, rocks are not "perfectly" shaped to stack in any old way.  You have to find the balance and where the weight is at in each.

Same can be true of building peace in our lives and in our world.  It takes time, patience, and persistence especially when what we are working on suddenly comes crashing down and we must start over - which happened just outside of the frame of both these photos.  Peace doesn't just happen to us.  We participate in building/cultivating/creating peace within us and around us.  For me, Mary and Joseph help to build peace in a chaotic world by saying, "Yes" to the movement of God’s hope.  Mary and Joseph are God-bearers in a world where others thought peace was a false promise.  Mary and Joseph invite us to stack the rocks of our lives as a witness to what God is up to here and now.

Consider the words to the song, "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me."  These words are both a prayer for God to help us stack the rocks of our lives into something beautiful AND for us to roll up our sleeves and do some work with God.

Build peace today.

Share peace today.

Receive peace from God's presence today.  Let it be, may it be, and may it bring more than a trace of God's grace.

Blessings ~~