Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Dearest God,

Trust! Trust! Trust!

A week ago in the early morning hour I took a friend to her car which was left at the church. On my way to the monastery I took what I thought to be a short cut. But it didn't wind up saving me time. I got lost. It was still dark and there was a lot of traffic. I called one of my colleagues. "I'm lost; I can't find my way. I don't know where I am." As I kept driving, I finally came to a street I recognized and eventually found my way to my destination.

That scene has been repeated a few times in my mind. "I'm lost; I can't find my way." I remember when Daddy began to lose his way, how he couldn't figure out where he was, how frightened he was when he began to suffer from Alzheimer's. I will never forget the look in his eyes. Even when I went to visit him in the later stage, his eyes were filled with fear. I was an unknown person to him. I knew who he was, knew our history as father and daughter, but Daddy didn't. I was another stranger. Daddy was lost.

How many times I have been lost, not just when driving my car. I didn't know where I was. I couldn't find my way. Emotionally, spiritually I was wandering sometimes in circles, sometimes just paralyzed in place. The darkness grew and I simply couldn't see my way out. It's a terrifying experience. My time in the car a week ago brought all this to mind, Daddy and me.

I don't have Alzheimer's. I still have all my faculties. (At least I think I do.) But I do lose my way. When I lose focus, when my eyes fall downward from heaven, I began to slip up, forgetting where I'm headed. I look around and discover I'm mired in a situation and sometimes fear takes over.

A few weeks ago I experienced a situation that was very painful. I felt the darkness close in on me. I felt afraid, hurt, and angry. Something I had thought about a few days earlier helped me. I looked upward. I cried out, "I lift up my eyes to the hills where my help comes from. I lift up my eyes..." I repeated it again and again. Instead of sinking into quicksand that sucks me downward even further, I felt my heart, my soul rising up, trusting, trusting you.

I have further discovered that I can live simply a human existence. I can take charge of my own life, determine my own destiny, do what I want. At the end I will have what I have made of my life, good, bad or indifferent. Or I can live a life where the sacred divine is woven into my being. Like a strand of DNA where all the information about my life is stored, a tiny golden sacred thread can be woven into every strand. So tight, so firmly that it is impossible to pull it apart from all other information. My being will be guided by you because I have chosen to allow the sign and symbol of your presence to be an intricate, intimate part of my life.

Trust comes with the woven strand. As part of my whole being I have the capability, the capacity, to trust in you. Trust will grow just as every other part of my spirit grows...grace, mercy, love, compassion. My days will be written differently because you are an innermost part of me, but more importantly, I am a part of you. I live your life in the world. Not to say that I am God, (good grief) but I do take on some of your characteristics, living a life of sacred quality, sprinkling into the world goodness, beauty, love, friendship, forgiveness. At the end greater words will be said about you as I lived my life in you, rather than the eulogy of a purely human existence. Prayerfully, hopefully, as I trust more and more, my life will point more and more to you.

Weave into me
every thread
of you.
Make my life
one of pure trust.
Guide me daily,
teaching me
to follow.
Allow my purpose
to be fulfilled,
my desire
to be faithful
always.
Repair
the broken places
within me
so I can be
a conduit
of your loving presence.
Let trust
flow through me
like a
never-ending stream.
Then
make all of me
to offer praise
now and forever.

Love, Andrea