The Journey to Jerusalem ...

Lent has been a L...O...N...G journey this year.  I've been offering a weekly Labyrinth Walk through Lent at Mission Bend United Methodist Church in Houston.   It was a Lenten Spiritual Discipline for me.  The Labyrinth was open from 1:00 pm to 8:00 pm ...

On Holy Tuesday I created an interactive prayer walking experience which featured the Labyrinth. Hear this prayer ... Jesus, come join us in our journey as we seek your will for this community in this environment. Teach us to love each other as you love us, to give ourselves as you give yourself that the kingdom of God might be made present to all. Amen.  I created in the spirit of this prayer which I learned as an active member of the Kairos Prison Ministry International community.

I hoped that people would find this sense of taking the journey with Jesus as they walked.  In this case we walk with Jesus on the path leading to the cross.  Although there is no way to get a real sense of the physical journey we took, I share it with you here ... 

A JOURNEY OF PRAYER AND REFLECTION

 

Following Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he continued to teach, preach, and heal.  The disciples prepared the Passover meal, as they were directed.  Before that … Jesus sat and contemplated the city of Jerusalem.   The city would soon be destroyed.  Jesus was grieving because Jerusalem had not responded to his declaration of the kingdom and God’s work of salvation in the city.  For this reason, Jesus begins holy week in pain and grief as he prays and laments. 

To continue you have to take the small "read more" under the photo

The Journey Within

journey to a place called wholeness ...

why bother to take the journey?  i know not why ... it is simply compelling.  i can't ... not go!  for i know the journey's end, whatever that is, if it is ... will be worth the pain of finding all the fragments of memories and experiences to include in my consciousness.  the call to wholeness deep within cannot be denied.  the sound in the silence cannot be ignored.  i am part of something larger, greater ... an intricate mosaic of God's own making.         breathe in breathe out ... come Spirit come

this is the question i carry into my day ... what is it i carry in the pack on my back ... that weighs me down and keeps me a heap of pieces scattered along the stony path to wholeness ... ?  

a man called Jesus once said ... come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and i will give you rest ... how can something that sounds so easy be so hard?

I have no idea where I am going ...

My God, My God, "I have no idea where I am going" ... this is a line from a prayer in one of my favorite books for a sabbath day ... Dialogues with Silence by Thomas Merton. It is actually quoted from another of his books ... Thoughts in Solitude.

In this prayer, Merton goes on to say some very comforting words to me and to people like me ... people who are never sure about anything. Merton says to God, "I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you." And I am counting on that ... because I have a really deep desire to take a journey with God!

I am taking the first step on this journey ... a journey that I am not ready for ... a journey that may lead me into my deepest desire. The deepest desire of my weary soul is to be in union with God being what I was created to be and doing what I was created to do. Yet for some reason I feel lost and so I walk with Merton and cry out ... My God, My God, "I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost ... for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me ..."

Trembling with feeble trust it is time to take a deep breath as I put myself out there in the world with MOSAIC Spiritual Formation Ministry ... Creating Beauty out of the Broken Pieces of Life.