Read, Write, Think

I think five days might do it, a retreat at the beach or just some hole in the wall by the freeway. Of course, unfortunately, by the second day missing my kids would be a physical ache. But I could really use a big chunk of solitude and silence, just to think, read, write, read, write, think, oh, and sleep.

Mary

A great mystery - about who we are, who God is, who He wants to be to us and us to Him - is revealed in her.  She is the path by which he came to us, the site of the convergence of the human and divine.  If you want to know Jesus, contemplate his mother - the deep truth about God and his relationship to us is made known there.  The great saints go so far as to say if you really want to bless Jesus, bless his mother. She is the very simplest, easiest path to him.  There is no better way to become as a little child than under her calm, cool, protective guidance.

Marginal Sleep Deprivation

Finding that balance of enough sleep. Staying up on that hump of feeling full of sleep (never stuffed - someday, maybe I'll have a chance to indulge in that again.) I used to sleep so long I would get that nightmare of not being able to move. So easy now to fall into the black hole of sleep deprivation, where my brain functions slowly, fuzzily. I find myself wasting a lot of time walking back to where I started from so that I can remember what I came for.

The potential of flight

I'm huddled here on the edge of the picnic blanket ("huddled" just because I'm sharing it with three sprawling children) under the ligustrum, half-listening to childish chatter, marveling at a perfect specimen of florida weather, watching the flying things. It's always the flying things that bring me back to life. Sometimes at my most despairing, just seeing a butterfly lifts my heart. It's because I think He sends them to me constantly as messengers. They tell me, first of all, that He's thinking of me, and second of all, that I too will take flight because I'm meant to.

After our walk, I came in and danced with my son while the girls were in the bath. He always asks me to dance when the music is on by putting his hand in mine as I hold him. And I remembered what I had on my tongue yesterday: God's very Body, and what I had in my throat: His Blood. And I know I will continue to be fed, and satisfied, as with the richest of foods, even after this beautiful flash in the pan. But I won't denigrate for its brevity the brilliance and color of its light. I won't downplay because it's it's own thing the unique, delicious taste of this feast prepared before me, in the presence of my enemies. It's real and in my heart forever. I know now God put it there, and it's beautiful with a Beauty it alone has, and mine. I won't ever do this play again with these people. I've never been good at letting go. The passage of time has a poignance that hurts me.

But I know He will reveal himself to me again as he did these last two months. I see him with his wings folded there in the dark and I see their colors, black and navy and colors without names, only radiance and mystery and beauty. He's perching there. He will unfurl his glory, and I will see it.

(2011)