Advent- Waiting

You keep us waiting.

You, the God of all time,

Want us to wait for the right time in which to discover

Who we are, where we must go,

Who will be with us, and what we must do.

So, thank you…for the waiting time.

 - John Bell

Light Of The World

'"...on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.""

                                                                                              - Ezekiel 47: 12 (NRSV)

" It is this light [Christ] that is our goal; it is this direction that our gaze must be fixed, despite the dark patches that are cast along the way." (From my current Bible reading notes)

 Here we are at the end of my first week back since my time on retreat and holiday. It's been a bumpy week, with, as you can see from the picture -  dark patches in amongst the blue: a glorious blue that so much speaks of the strength and peace that I found from the time away. The greyish patches? Well, there've been several tragic incidents in the wider community here this last week, incidents which have shaken everybody to the core and will continue to have reverberations whether or not we're close to the people concerned.  There is no sense in it...no words....

Yet, it was a couple of on the surface of it innocuous  - even -  positive encounters the other day that, like, Avila, hit me like a bolt out of the blue,  pressed all my buttons and insecurities: the "You're no good," the "Just who do you think you are to even think you could...?" and worst of all, "You'll never do it..." (ok, I dredged up enough strength to squish this last one very firmly ), and sent me spinning and spiralling downwards into a mushy pile of tears, snot and self-pity. Threatening to sabotage all the wonderful self-confidence and change of focus gained from retreat and  a recent chat with my spiritual director. 

I'm coming out of it now; due in no small way to the patience of poor Mr GP, Avila, from A Weeble's Wonderings, whose bravery in sharing her very similar struggles was so uncannily well-timed, honest prayer ('Quiet Time' is not the best way to describe what the Almighty was offered!), and the passage from Ezekiel and its commentary, which taps back into the energy and sense of a far wider, grounded, more spacious self and place. That's where I know I belong, even if I  still feel slightly Beakerish! Hence the tree I added to the picture, rooted and fed by the water flowing from the sanctuary. "Their leaves will not wither nor their fruits fail..." 

"Meep!"

The long and winding road - praying the labyrinth

St Columba's Bay, Iona, labyrinth, May 2011

The labyrinth at St Beunos, retreat October 2011

Made one of those happy discoveries this evening when I stumbled across a labyrinth blog for the first time: agracingmaze, which  title I reckon deserves an award for both aptness and the most apalling pun ever! Looks to be some wonderful resources and a chance to share reflections on this means of prayerful walking.

As I've written before in my old Greenpatches blog, the labyrinth has played a significant part in my own walk; sometimes affirming, always challenging. Yet, do you know, it's only as I was pondering earlier on the struggles of somebody else that the realisation is  dawning a) of the tremendous distance I've travelled (spiritually as well as physically!) since those first, hesitant steps, and b) an emerging pattern: each time the labyrinth symbolising a time of transition,  liminal space, a turning point, a call to go deeper with God.  And yet I'd not always appreciated this at the time. I guess when you're in the thick of a situation it's easy to feel that you're going nowhere, trudging  round in an endless circle. Only time, space and perspective reveal  that this circle, is, in fact, a spiral. Quietly breathtaking.  Cue imitation of a (happily) stranded guppy...

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Darkness

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

 - Psalm 139