praying through the cracks

Beauvais

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,

my memory, my understanding,

and my entire will,

All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.

To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.

Give me only your love and your grace,

that is enough for me.

 ~St. Ignatius of Loyola, 

Suscipe prayer

At Medieval Chauvigny

 Besides the fields of yellow, on our recent pilgrimage of the French countryside and its astonishing Cathedrals, I became obsessed with doors.

In particular, the juxtaposition of doors, or openings, and light. I was fascinated by the fusion and separation, whether the door was wide open or there was light pouring through the gaps, the door’s cracks.

windows and door at our French farm home

I feel full of questions about my writing projects and what, if anything, I have to offer. But my physical tiredness doesn’t help me think very clearly these days.

Keeping everyone’s intentions in my heart. And from here, praying to have a heart that is an open door—one that allows the Christ Light to shine, even through my cracks.

at Mont-St-Michel

when will I surrender?

“Come, let us bow down in worship;

let us kneel before the Lord who made us.

For he is our God,

and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.”

~Psalm 95

Today I read in "Courage to Change" a reflection that culminated with the sentence: 

“Heaven forbid I should surrender, accept my discomfort, and pray for guidance.”

Surrender. Accept. Pray for guidance. I am struck by the simplicity and utter truthfulness of this formula. I am back to the first step, surrender. Always surrender. So today this is exactly what I do. I get on my knees and say out loud, 

“Into your hands, Lord, I surrender my body. Into your hands, I surrender my mind. Into your hands I surrender my spirit, my will, my desires, my worries, my hopes, my fears. I surrender my ideas and image of who I am, and I beg you to show me what you see. I surrender all of me. Grant me O my Lord the ability to accept, and, please guide me. Show me the way.”

Just saying the words, calls to mind a period in my life not so long ago when I struggled with surrender from a different and more poignant point of view--when my chronic joint pain and fatigue was in full flare up. 

After kneeling that night in prayer, I wrote in my journal:

My knees throb; uncomfortable in even the short time it takes me to pray. Before getting up, however, I hang my head and let myself cry. It’s hard to explain what’s going on inside me without sounding overly dramatic.  

It’s not that I can’t do it without God’s help—this I know to be true, but it’s not enough.  

It is rather that I acknowledge that I am literally unable, based on my own will, to live like this at all—and if I am to go on living today, and tomorrow, and the day after—it can only be resting in God’s guiding hand.