A Pilgrimage into Silence and Beyond: Journey Home

at the Abbey, 

in the dark, 

I would rise to chant with the monks for Vigils at 6 am.  The sun took that time to rise.  Before we finished our readings back and forth, one side to another and all for God ... I could see the snow falling.

This morning we read Psalm 22:14 and these words shimmered off the page and into my heart:

"I am poured out like water ..."

each word echoing within me 

as I readied myself for the journey home.

O yes, my heart is singing

I AM poured out like water!

I AM coming home!

waiting to leave, writing in my journal ... 

i am poured out like water from an earthen vessel   cracked in all the right places and so many wrong places.  Weeping and seeping with turbulent emotions raging like the Pecos River so close.  Receiving God's love -- love like living water and so pours forth the love of God into the world.  And how can that love pour forth without the cracks?  Without each carefully crafted crack the water would lay dormant in its container, stagnant, smelly ... ugliness drifting from within, emerging from the outer edge of consciousness.  so I will rejoice in each new crack in the vessel of clay that I am.  O God, I am the raging river and you are my shoreline, guiding me, holding me, loving me.  I marvel at your presence and your love poured upon my grief.  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  Pour forth your healing grace and love, make your presence known to all who grieve today and every day, to all who are broken, to all who are healing.  Pour on!  Amen!

A blessing for the Journey Home

May your trails be crooked, winding,
lonesome, dangerous,
leading to the most amazing view.
May your mountains rise
into and above the clouds.
~Edward Abbey

  

Vaya
Con Dios!


Go
with God!

To begin the journey from the beginning, take this link:

A Pilgrimage into Silence and Beyond 

 

A Pilgrimage into Silence and Beyond: Silence, Sabbath, and Snow

"Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.”
~Mary Oliver

I woke up in the dark to the snow falling upon a white blanket of fresh snow laying upon the earth.  There is a gentle quality to the silence as the star-shaped flakes float to the ground.  Birds sing a new song and prayer rises from within, may I trust you, O God, that I am exactly where I am meant to be. 

We have to learn

to invite Silence

and having invited Silence

we now have to

learn to enter Silence.

~ Robert Sardello 

   Sabbath invites us to stop.

It invites us to rest.
It asks us to notice
that while we rest,
the world continues
without our help.
It invites us to delight
in the world’s
beauty and abundance.”
~ Wendell Berry

 

Snow falling, snow falling, snow falling and what shall become of me?  a pilgrimage into wildness ... wilderness wanderings and how is my soul traveling, anxiety emerges like rocks in the stream, stumbling blocks to experiencing God in all of her glory and wild imaginings ... snow falling, snow falling, snow falling, such a different day is today!  for yesterday the sun was shining.

 

 What can I learn from the snow today?  of God, of nature, of love, of stillness, of silence and solitude, too.  It is wild in the wilderness!  Touch me in the wild spaces of my soul, O God and let the ducks quack, the bird sing ... to me, to the world, to those who have passed from this world into the next, into beauty divine.  Wrap me in your presence and let there be peace within my soul.  

Do not go where the path may lead,

go instead where there is no path

and leave a trail. 

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take this link for Part 4: Journey Home

To begin the journey from the beginning, take this link:
A Pilgrimage into Silence and Beyond  

A Pilgrimage into Silence and Beyond: Welcome to Pecos Abbey

the Power of Slowing meets us in the wilderness.  

~ Gerald May, The Wisdom of Wilderness

I began to experience the Power of Slowing as we drove into the mountains and approached the Abbey.  The clouds were beginning to break in the distance and much of the recent snow had melted into the earth, only flurries in the wind to remind me of the wild nature of the wilderness I would be immersed in for the next few days.

the river calls ... divine whispering in the wind

                                                               Be still and Know that I am God.   Psalm 46:10  

 

In the sunshine and in the snow, I am God.

In your walking and in your resting, I am God.

In your joy and in your sadness, I am God.

In your laughter and in your tears, I am God.

In silence, everything is experienced as "within" but not as "within us."  We, along with everything else, are within silence.

~Robert Sardello

God of the Wilderness,

May I sink deep, deep into Silence.

Amen.

The Prior at Pecos Abbey, Father Aidan, invited us to join the monks for praying the hours of the Daily Office.  From their schedule, I set my own:  Vigils 6 am, Midday 12 noon, Vespers 5 pm, and Compline 7:15 pm.  Listening for the bells ... leaving my silence for sweet moments of worship.

 Trees dance in the wind

branches shiver in the cold

like my soul on a brisk winter walk.

Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem 

as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven.

~John Lubbock

And now I lay me down to sleep ... Amen!

Take this link for Part 3: Silence, Sabbath, and Snow

To take the journey from the beginning, take this link:
A Pilgrimage into Silence and Beyond 
 

A Pilgrimage into Silence and Beyond: Beginning the Journey

As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, 

a certain sense of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow.
A. C. Benson

The way I've always heard people talk about pilgrimage is to say, "a pilgrimage is a physical journey with a spiritual purpose."   I recently journeyed on my own to Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey in Pecos, New Mexico to meet up with small band of spiritual travelers.  As I look back and consider how my recent pilgrimage to Pecos unfolded, I believe it started with a simple email newsletter that popped into my inbox.  It came from The Center for Christian Spirituality, a ministry of Chapelwood United Methodist Church in Houston. 

The flyer said, "Exploring Wisdom from the Wilderness" and it said we would dwell mostly in silence.  Yes.  I felt drawn to this and my calendar gave me permission.  Yes.  I will do this.  Simple.

“The Wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have yet learned to ask.”
~ Nancy Wynne Newhall

Suddenly, several days after I said yes I got a phone call from my sister, "Clarissa (my niece) is being transferred to a Hospice facility.  How soon can you be here?"  This was a journey I didn't want to make ... this was a journey no one wants to take.  

The evening that I arrived or maybe it was the second evening, the days all ran one into the other ...    

writing in my journal ... 

 Sitting here on the open top floor of the parking garage, praying as the sun sets, remembering that God loves us all so much that the sun rises and the sun sets with such beauty it takes the breath away ... in much the same way Clarissa does when she enters a room.

The days spent with my niece and my sister and all of the family gathered at her bedside for more than a week had a surreal substance to them, and I found myself being hollowed out from within as her young heart kept her lingering several days past when I had to leave.  I found that I was dwelling in that room with her even though I was no longer with her, liminal space ... God space ... all of life became a "thin space," where the veil between this world and the eternal world is so thin you can almost reach out and touch eternity ... not with your body nor even with your senses really but more with your spirit.  

"Heaven and Earth are only three feet apart,

but in the thin places that distance is even smaller."

~ an old Celtic saying

On Transfiguration Sunday as I was leading worship, I came to a line in the Prayers of the People, "O God ... receive the dying."   As many times as I had previewed that prayer, I had not "seen" those words.   As I was standing before the people, I did see them ... before I read them.  And I was overcome with tears welling up within me, tears that had refused to fall before that moment.  I barely made it through that prayer even as I felt the strength pouring into me from God and the people, it sank to my feet and still the hollowness was left as I thought, "Transfiguration Sunday is a good day to die."  Clarissa died that evening and my soul was suddenly released from waiting in Vigil so far away from her and my sister. 

And the journey continues, so much work left undone over the days and yes, I did think, "I should cancel my trip to Pecos."  But my soul hung on as I heard the call of the mountains in Pecos ...

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. 

And when you have reached the mountain top, 

then you shall begin to climb. 

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, 

then shall you truly dance.
~ Khalil Gibran

Take this link for Part 2: Welcome to Pecos Abbey

Taize and Teresa ... Praying with Prayer Beads

Since ancient times, people have been praying in some way with prayers beads ... they may not have been strung together, they may have just been used as a symbol for counting prayers.  Desert Mothers and Fathers are said to have carried pebbles in their pockets.  Roman Catholics pray with the Rosary and many, if not all, religions have their own style of prayers beads.  I been drawn to Anglican Prayer beads, I really like their rhythm.  It has become a prayer practice for me to make prayer beads for others and for myself.  It is creative, contemplative, and calming.  Here is the set of beads I am using this week as I am immersed in the writings of Teresa of Avila and am contemplating the Interior Castle within. 

If you want to know more about formal praying with beads, you can google Anglican Prayer beads and find all the information that you want.  I don't always use the formal words that are used to describe the set of prayer beads, I use words that work for me.  

My invitation is to read just until you are full. Buy a book on Praying with Prayer Beads if you must.  Here is a good book: A Bead and a Prayer.  They also have a simple website.  Here is their "basics" page:  http://abeadnaprayer.com/prayer-bead-basics/

And then ... just pray and allow your prayer to form you.  As your prayers form you, you will form your prayers.  Here is my prayer for now ...

Cross: Prayer of Teresa

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

Bead of Invitation (to prayer) Psalm 46:10

Be still and know that I am God

Cruciform:  2 Corinthians 12:9

My Grace is sufficient for you.

Beads: a Taize chant (spoken or sung)

Holy Spirit, Come to us

Repeat Cruciform prayer and 7 beads 3 more times or continue around the beads as many times as you want and can ... before you emerge up from prayer and out into the world.  The refrain I am using "Holy Spirit, Come to us," is the chanting refrain that is sung underneath Veni Sanctu Spiritu, which means "Come Holy Spirit."

Prayer of Gathering of the Bead of Invitation (to the world) Psalm 46:10

Be still and know that I am God

Cross:  Prayer of Teresa

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.  Amen.

So ... this is my process.  May God bless you as your own process unfolds in your prayer practice. 

Your own way of praying with prayer beads will unfold over time.   Here I have shared the way I have taken praying with beads and made it my own practice, one that fits me and my lifestyle as a praying person.  

Sometimes ... I will take prayer beads with me and simply use the refrain (what I'm praying on the bead prayer) while holding them ... suddenly I realize that I am not praying the prayer, the prayer is praying me.  

Holy Spirit, Come to Us

Holy Spirit, Come to Us is a short Taize refrain that is chanted or sung underneath solos or longer refrains.   If you take this clip you will hear the way I hear when I am praying, except at a much slower pace in my prayers:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2ZFlmzWcws

You will hear much the same music in the more popular Come, Holy Spirit which in Latin is Veni, Sancte Spiritus.  Take this clip to hear it beautifully done, the icons are stunning as well:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmxXwAgkhWQ

So ... I hear the words in my prayers to the music and style and pace of Come, Holy Spirit :)

a silent stroll on the beach ...

O God, you are my God! I long for you!
My soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you,
in a dry and parched land where there is no water.

Psalm 63:1 (NET)*

I spent Saturday afternoon with a community of women in prison alongside a group of my Kairos sisters.  As I meditated on what kind of encouragement I could share with the ladies, I repeated these words from the Psalms as I allowed them to soak into my mind.  

Suddenly into the "dry and parched land where there is no water" the image of waves along the beach in Galveston, Texas rolled into my consciousness.

This photo was taken as I was taking a silent soul stroll by myself along the beach in July 2010.  As I was pondering life, I remember thinking how like God's love those waves were.  

O God, you are my God! I long for you!

The waves relentlessly rolled in and caressed each grain of sand, the gentle rhythm invited stillness and peace.  There was simply nothing you could do to stop those waves.  Just like there is nothing you can do that would ever stop God from loving you!

O God, you are my God! I long for you!

The sand, the stones, the seaweed, the tiny gulf creatures, the seagulls, the children playing ... none did anything to deserve the water that drenched them.  

O God, you are my God! I long for you!

Sometimes ... I forget how much God loves me, usually when I am not feeling that loving toward myself.  Sometime, I strive to earn God's love, usually when I am feeling rather useless.  Do you ever forget like I do or maybe you forget in your own way?  

I think it is good for everyone to meditate and marinate in God's love occasionally at least, every day is helpful too!  

 O God, you are my God! I long for you!

Perhaps you might close your eyes and allow your longing for God to engulf you like waves on the beach.  Repeat quietly these words and let them lead you into a gentle healing silence: 

O God, you are my God! I long for you!  (pause)

O God, you are my God! I long for you!  (pause)

O God, you are my God!  (pause)

O God, you are my God!  (pause)

 O God ... (pause)

O God 

 (pause ... and drift into silence for as long as seems right to you) Amen.

Remember that no matter where you are or what you are doing, you can always pause, close your eyes, and walk on the beach ... with Jesus or the seagulls if you want to.  Repeat these beautiful words from Psalm 63 as a calming mantra in your mind to find a moment of peace in your whirlwind life.    

Final words to pray before moving on ...

God of Stillness, drop your still dews of quietness until all my strivings cease; take from my soul the strain and stress, and let my ordered life confess the beauty of your peace.  Breathe through the heat of my desire your coolness and your balm; let my senses be silent, let my flesh retire; speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire, 0 still small voice of calm! Amen.

~John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

  

Prayer found and adapted from Lyn Klug's All Will Be Well: A Gathering of Healing Prayers 

*Scripture quoted by permission. (NET) from the NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2006 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C.  All rights reserved.

when silence falls across our threshold ...

We do not all choose

the same place 

of beginning;

not all doorways 

are meant for entry.

And so

when silence falls

across the threshold

I have meant for welcome, 

may you, guardian of every passage,

cast your shadow

at my door.

~Jan Richardson

Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas

The Chapel Door at Mariawald Renewal Center in Reading, PA

I love doors.  

To me, a door is a symbol of threshold.  Threshold invites.  Threshold calls.  Threshold is a powerful image which holds anticipation and possibilities and mystery. Sometimes, threshold carries chaos.  And into our chaos, threshold evokes a sense of waiting … silent waiting until the door is opened from within.   

Reading Esther de Waal’s book, To Pause at the Threshold, I became familiar with this traditional saying of ancient wisdom, “A threshold is a sacred thing.” 

In many Asian traditions, the sacredness of threshold is honored by removing the shoes.  In a way, entering over the threshold to a home is a “mini-pilgrimage.”  The shoes are physically removed to symbolize leaving behind the outer world in order to enter the inner world of relationship, with the self or with others, depending on whether the home is your own or the home of another person. 

Just as Moses removed his shoes at the burning bush because the Holy One “spoke” into his chaos, when silence falls across our threshold, we come barefoot and vulnerable.  All of our chaos wrapped up like a hobo’s kerchief on the end of a stick, as we fall silent, prostrate and broken, we unwind and unwrap and let go as we enter the threshold spaces within which God resides.     

Meister Eckhart, a 15th century mystic said, "What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the Son of God fourteen hundred years ago and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be Mothers of God."  Eckhart reminds me that it is these threshold spaces that connect me to the suffering world, for God invites me ever so gently to emerge from the silence to turn, emerge from the safety and protection I've found in the depths of my threshold spaces and carry the healing love I find in the center back out to the borderlands of my world. 

For me, advent is the most sacred threshold of the year.  Advent is the time of the "already and the not yet," paradoxically and simultaneously, a concept that my mind cannot comprehend ... but images hold so beautifully.

I love doors.

Reflection:  What images hold your advent waiting this year?  Is there an invitation being birthed within the silence of your threshold spaces ... within you?  

Prayer:  Advent God, as I dwell in this wild and mysterious threshold space, hollow me out so that I may carry you with grace, hold you with awareness, and birth you with love into the world.  Amen.

a new perspective

Meditation is the soul's perspective glass.
~Owen Feltham

I opened the door and stepped out into the crisp cool air of autumn in the South.  I breathed in the silence of the morning and took a step into the world of nature and contemplation.

As I came to the end of the street, I wondered ... what if I turn a different way?  What if I turn right instead of left?  And so, adventurous soul that I am, I turned right with a thrill of anticipation.  

Suddenly a whole new world opened up for me.  I saw everything from a new perspective.  

As I crossed the street and came to the pond down the road, the landscape arose before me ... I put the camera to my eyes to capture this beautiful gift I had received and found I had the wrong lens.  No matter what I did or where I turned ... I could not capture the breadth of this amazing vista with its plethora of trees, different but muted fall colors, extraordinarily interesting stagnant water of the pond welcoming the rush of falling water over the rocks, clearly bright blue sky with its sparsely strung but fluffy white clouds floating in their lazy way.  

I set the camera aside for awhile and just sat ... receiving the gift of a new perspective.  

Sometimes we are not meant to capture, we are just meant to receive.  

And then, perhaps we are called to get up and walk a little further on our path, for another gift is waiting up ahead, just around the corner!   

the great silence of life ...

approaching 

the great silence of life

darkness descends

ancestral mothers dance

among the cement stones

simple by design

the pathway invites

welcome to the resting place

they call

sitting on a rock

i rest

bowing my head

opening my eyes 

i see

a small acorn

st julian whispers

in my soul

god created it

god protects it

god loves it

and i respond

god will welcome it home

tears flow

the end is near 

and forever here

© Oct 2014 Cindy Serio

Mariawald Renewal Center

Reading, PA

 

One Deep and Delicious Note

So God created humankind in God's image. 

In the image of God they were created.

Male and female God created them.

See Genesis 1:27  

An old Hasidic story says wherever a human being walks a host of angels precedes each one, proclaiming: 

"Make way, make way for the image of God." Indeed!  

~Tilden Edwards

Edwards shares this saying in his book Embracing the Call to Spiritual Depth.  Waves of beautiful remembrance washed over me as I read these words and sat in the silence of the morning.  I first heard these words at a retreat several years ago as Jane Vennard was working on her book, Fully Awake Truly Alive, one of my favorites.

Jane asked us to get up and walk, basking in the presence of angels acknowledging our beauty created in the divine image. This was an affirming experience but I feel I was transported into the very presence of God when she said, "now, walk among one another, gazing with soft eyes at the "other" as you pass by ... In my heart I could hear a symphony of angels each singing the songs of those they preceded.  It was a simple exercise but it was also quite transformative for me.  As I moved once again into the world I found myself listening carefully, quietly for the angels preceding each person.  I've never heard a dissonant note.  

Truly I believe each living being ... is a precious child of our Great Creator, gifted with one deep and delicious note to enhance the symphony of angels.  

Have you found your one deep and delicious note?  And how will you live it as your path unfolds today?

Mariawald Renewal Center - Reading, Pennsylvania