A Midweek Prayer from Collegeville

 

This week, I’m back in Collegeville, MN with some of my favorite people on the planet – my writing group. We met here three years ago for a writing workshop and now have the golden chance to bask once again in the beauty of St. John’s campus. We’re drinking in these gorgeous days filled with one another, prayer services with the monks at Abbey church, trail runs through the arboretum…if this isn’t heaven, it’s very, very close.

I’m hearing and seeing and feeling things that awaken me to how I truly want to live. And I am so grateful.

 Spirit of

            grace and grit,

You are the Giver of freedom.

I’ve been asking for it.

For years.

For that strength,

            courage,

                        discipline

to break free.

 

But I’m now realizing

that while freedom sometimes comes in

one, glorious breakthrough

where I burst through the bramble into

a fresh clearing,

never to turn back or tread the old path,

ready to leave the darkness of the forest behind me…

 

Well, that’s just not been my experience.

 

More often, freedom comes

through a muddy trail run where I’m

weaving

and winding,

not always moving forward,

but still

progressing.

 

The dirt sticking to the crevices of my shoes,

the roots I knead with the soles of my feet,

the pine needles collecting in my hair,

teach me that what I so wanted to leave behind

actually becomes my story.

 

And that with you,

there are no dead ends or pointless loops.

They are part of the journey…

the story….

And I need them. 

 

When I can breathe in what dim light I find

within the trees and keep taking each step

on the uneven trail,

I learn to trust. 

To trust I am not lost,

but burrowed in a womb of life-giving mystery. 

And you say,

“You are already free. 

Now live into that truth.”

 

In and through the Giver of Freedom,

Amen.