walked the labyrinth at the mother-house this a.m. - I am still amazed and delighted by the simplicty and effectiveness of it - a wonderful way to center down, remove distractions, and be with God. Then tonight I pulled out Barbara Brown Taylor's book An Altar in the World to read a new chapter and the next one happened to be "The Practice of Walking on the Earth: Groundedness." She discusses the benefits of labyrinths and of paying attention wherever you are, to see God. Reminds me of the poem I like by EBB:
"Earth's crammed with heaven
And every common bush
afire with God.
But only he who sees
takes off his shoes -
The rest sit around it
and pluck blackberries."
Taylor says, "To detach the walking from the destination is in fact one of the best ways to recognize the altars you are passing right by all the time....Just do it, and the doing will teach you what you need to live."
One recent day on my way to work I missed a turn, so I planned to take an alternate route, but there was so much road construction everywhere that I ended up taking the most convoluted way to work I could have imagined. Later, I remembered the labyrinth, and it reminded me of that. To my delight, BBT's next chapter is "The Practice of Getting Lost: Wilderness." On the same day I began that chapter, a little boy wandered into my yard and asked me to help him find his way home because he'd gotten disoriented. Another concrete way to process what I'm learning from the book. The latest issue of the journal "Conversations", which arrived recently, has a similar theme. I love the marvelous synchronicity of the life with God.
So good! Love you!!
ReplyDelete