Posts Tagged "reflection"

To Restore

Echoes When I think of restoration, I think of destruction. First, something doesn’t need to be restored if it hadn’t been wrecked in the first place. But second, once something is restored, it can be wrecked all over again. Like a child’s building made of blocks. Up it goes. Down it comes. So what is the point of restoration, then? To a child, making infinite buildings after infinite demolitions is the fun of...

On Seeds

Transformation So, at first it’s easy. Growth. Green. Life. Creation. All sorts of good things. But what happens when something you don’t want comes up in the middle of your garden? Weeds, say. Weeds come from seeds, too, you know. But forget weeds for now.  They are, after all, minor annoyances that you are meant to pull up and destroy. What about a plant that you thought would be good—a plant you committed to taking care...

On Retreat

Walk Away It’s a battle term—retreat. It is the opposite of attack. To remove oneself from the fray. To hide amongst the trees, out of the sunlight, off the plain of conflict. It means to drop your weapon; to run, empty-handed away. It means to stop fighting; to stop thinking about fighting, even. Retreat. We want to think of it as a time of rest, of serenity, of knitting our frayed souls back together. But it’s really...

To Wrestle

Open Hands A funny word, I thought when I first read it. Not just a funny word for a topic for contemplative prayer, but a funny word just on its own. Period. Full stop. Wrestle? Of course, all I could think of was the very common use of it these days—and very common indeed in terms of the quality of life—the term, mud wrestling. So, I am sitting in contemplative prayer and wondering what in Heaven’s name does mud wrestling—or...

To Fast

Cleaning The Gutters Again—again after the last writing I did—what I saw in my prayer while focusing on the concept of “fast,” was parts. Parts of me that lie alongside each other, and between them are gutters.  The gutters collect the runoff from the individual parts. And, for me, to fast means to keep those gutters clean.  To keep the parts whole and on their own.  Maintaining the integrity of the parts so that the whole...