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A Musing Amma

~ Gathering the pieces of our lives together under the eyes of the Holy

A Musing Amma

Category Archives: traveling mercies

An Agenda for This Year of Life

14 Saturday Oct 2017

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in joy, traveling mercies, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

beauty, joy

StAnnedeBeaupre

I just celebrated a Big Birthday! Somewhere in my lists of oughts and shoulds, I had been imagining that I would have a new Mission Statement with clear aims and goals for this occasion and part of my life. Instead, I was traveling for fun, coming out of an intense period of focused care-giving and attending to both daily and cosmic need. My heart and mind were muddled rather than at peace. I was delighted to be away from the daily bombardment of news of disarray and sadness, and so it was a journey toward tranquility that took us on a drive up the St. Lawrence River out of  Quebec City, devouring and savoring the beauty of the fall colors just beginning to turn.

Our first stop was the cathedral of St. Anne de Beaupre. The entire edifice is dedicated to Anne, in legend the mother of Mary, mother of Jesus, and was beautiful in every way–color, light, design. It was for us truly a sacred space. However, the great gift to me amidst the physical beauty was the inscription over the large statue of Anne, declaring: That my joy may be in you. The same inscription in French oversaw the pulpit on the opposite side. I was stopped in wonder, love and praise. I wondered when and how often I has been in a worship space, a worship community, that invited me to be in Joy. I have seen many other churches and cathedrals that have invited me to stillness, to awe, to reverence, but I could not remember such an explicit invitation to Joy.

As the journey continued, both inside and out, I became aware that the Joy comes, not in big pronouncements or agendas, even Vision Statement, but it comes in the attention to the graces and invitations that were offered to me each day. Some were sheer beauty–fields of canola and leaves turning read and yellow and purple. Some came in laughter over new discoveries and shared amazement. Some came in questions raised by what we saw in museums, on sidewalks, and river fronts. And some came in knowing my body well enough to be able to say, “I have taken in all I can accommodate today.”

It brought to mind a quotation from Marvin Hiles that I have carried around for many years: To live sweetly in the bitter days, to shape beauty among the grotesque, to exult in the littles, and to declare in the midst of brokenness a wholeness that comes now and ultimately. God’s joy in me in the daily, in the moment and in the long haul.

As I journeyed home from my trip to Canada, I found that graces and invitations were all around–a Taize service that centered me, a planning meeting that energized (!), the joining of two friends of mine who had not known each other previously in a justice project, opportunities to walk with love ones in distress. Not always joy, not always happiness, but Joy.

This week, as if to add an exclamation to my findings, these words came from Celtic Daily Prayer II, by Andy Raine: These are the days for noticing the small things, establishing trust and saying things that need no words. In the miasma and stench of rhetoric in the public sphere these days, I am cheered by the prospect of an alternative narrative, one that allows for and leads to Joy, and even invites me to be a bringer of the Joy of the Holy that is in me!

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Traveling Mercies

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in Mercy, pilgrimage, traveling mercies, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

joy, prayer

Travelingmercies2All summer I have been sending traveling mercies to my friends on the move. Today I pray for traveling mercies for my own moving and wandering:

I pray for peace for this anxious traveler, who worries about connections, forgotten items, anticipated glitches. Breathe your peace into my body, mind and spirit.

I pray for those who make it possible for me to travel, pilots. attendants, agents and greeters and innkeepers. May each of them have what they need to do their jobs with skill and heart.

I pray that I will embody a patient and merciful spirit with systems that have the capacity to break down, delay and confound. Help me to be one who brings compassion and tranquility to any chaotic kerfuffle that breaks out.

I pray for those I love with whom I will abide and celebrate, each with a unique and particular personality and set of needs and wants. I pray for the Spirit to make us a peaceable realm as we hang out together for these days, not just tolerating each other, but learning to love more dearly, with exciting discoveries, deep appreciation and lots of laughter and delight.

I pray that even though I will be a visiting tourist, I will also be able to see those in the area we visit with gentle and welcoming eyes and ears, that I may treat each person with respect and honor while I am given hospitality.

I pray that my heart, body and mind will be open to seeing things I have never witnessed before with curiosity and interest, with great gratitude for the variety in the  world that the Holy has made and in which we live.

I pray, most of all, that I take Joy from the Creator in each moment of living, loving, laughing, learning, trusting that the Joy of the Holy is my strength whether I am at work or at play.

I am resting in Traveling Mercies!

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