Prayers for this Wednesday

 

Every year is an unfolding journey, an unknowable future. 

Even with our goals listed.

Even with our calendars ~ the neat/evenly-spaced/orderly boxes.

Even with our to-do lists.

There are these disruptions and interruptions.

 

Hear this poem/prayer from Jan Richardson:

 

If you could see the journey whole you might never undertake it; might never dare the first step that propels you from the place you have known toward the place you know not. Call it one of the mercies of the road: that we see it only by stages as it opens before us, as it comes into our keeping step by single step. There is nothing for it but to go and by our going take the vows the pilgrim takes: to be faithful to the next step; to rely on more than the map; to heed the signposts of intuition and dream; to follow the star that only you will recognize; to keep an open eye for the wonders that attend the path; to press on beyond distractions beyond fatigue beyond what would tempt you from the way. There are vows that only you will know; the secret promises for your particular path and the new ones you will need to make when the road is revealed by turns you could not have foreseen. Keep them, break them, make them again: each promise becomes part of the path; each choice creates the road that will take you to the place where at last you will kneel to offer the gift most needed— the gift that only you can give— before turning to go home by another way.

 

What is that new way you feel called to go?

Why?  Is this a nudge from the holy?  Or is it because someone has told you that was the road to travel? 

In the transition from who we’ve been to who we prayerfully seek to be ~ there is the becoming ~ the active unfolding that cannot be rushed or raced through.  Just as a rose will open in its own time, so your life ~ like creation and seasons ~ moves at a pace and rhythm that might not be on a tight timeline or easy to measure/follow steps.

 

What is the gift you can give today?  Perhaps the gift is self-compassion ~ realizing this is the first time you’ve been as old as you’ve are right now ~ realizing that you’ve never lived this day you are living right now.  Even though some of the surroundings may seem familiar ~ there are differences and distinctions to be honored ~ you’ve never been right here before.  Give the gift that others are where they are because of experiences and encounters and events ~ of which you may never really know.  Give the gift to God of openness and curiosity and love ~ for these are the gifts God gives all creation every day.

 

For the path ahead ~ that we don’t really have a map ~ know that God promises to go beside, before, behind and within you always.  Amen.