But praise

As I begin to write these words it is just after 8.30 in the morning, as the office of Lauds is being said and sung a few miles away at Turvey Abbey Benedictine monastery.

Yesterday, I returned from Turvey after co-leading our first Enneagram weekend of the year, introducing a new group of people to this insightful system of personal and spiritual growth. And what a positive and thoughtful group they were.

At the same time, the six-week online course I’ve been part of, Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist, led by Christine at Abbey of the Arts has ended. I’m grateful to have been a part of this community of people, all of us ordinary yet extraordinary.

I am so full of hope and joy about the groundswell of desire for growth that I sense all around us, and not only because, in the Northern hemisphere at least, spring is beginning to break through the frozen ground. I’ve noticed that increasingly when I talk about what could be seen as a somewhat eccentric preoccupation with Benedictine life and with spiritual and creative growth, people I meet are interested and asking questions. There’s a different feeling around from the days a few years ago when colleagues would look at me as if I’d suddenly grown two heads. Or perhaps I’m simply less tentative in my self.

This morning I read a poem from the awakening hour section of Macrina Widerkehr‘s book seven sacred pauses. It reflects perfectly this sense of grace and renewal that I’m aware of:

What lifts the heron leaning on the air
I praise without a name. A crouch, a flare,
a long stroke through the cumulus of trees,
a shaped thought at the sky – then gone. O rare!
Saint Francis, being happiest on his knees,
would have cried Father! Cry anything you please.
But praise. By any name or none. But praise
the white original burst that lights
the heron on his two soft kissing kites.
When saints praise heaven lit by doves and rays,
I sit by pond scums till the air recites
Its heron back. And doubt all else. But praise.

John Ciardi

What grace and renewal can you see in the moments that make up your life?

Image by S Wolfe

Elsewhere:

And as we approach the sacred time of Lent, Claire Bangasser talks about Cultivating our Soul, and Jan Richardson meditates upon Ashes and Sojourner Truth.

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