Thursday, October 16, 2008

Dearest God,

I have a monastic heart and soul; I have a soul space where you always reside. I may choose to come, to listen, to follow obediently or I may ignore you. The choice is mine.

I so much resonate with monastic life, a life that begins and ends each day in worship, prayer, hymn singing, silence, and scripture readings. I want to live a disciplined life, one that acknowledges God at the center every day. I want my last day on earth to begin in adoration or to end in praise. I want you on my lips as I part company with earth and seek the One whom I have sought all my life.

Yet, I cannot be a monastic in community; for I am a free spirit. I cannot be confined and regimented for even though I love the daily practice of beginning and ending in worship, I cannot give away my desire to soar in non-traditional ways. My spirit wants to dance; my hands want to praise any time, any way; my voice wants to give way to singing; and my soul wants to let go, releasing myself into your hands. My silence wants to meet your Silence as a way of uniting, a daily, sometimes an hourly reunion, a joy erupting as I silence my words and thoughts for yours.

I once sang in community, "Lord, breathe your spirit; make the face of the earth come alive." From Breaking Bread the words make my spirit come to life. Stirring inside me, I know no joy greater. Your spirit is the force, the power, the gentle persuader that calls my flesh and bone to take notice. Have I forgotten my maker? Have I taken charge of this body of bones? Your spirit calls me to acknowledge I have been made; I did not create myself.

Sister Jean Alice once said my covenant name was Sister Andrea of the Dancing God. And why? Because the God I serve, you Wondrous Creator, is a dancing God, a moving God, one that lives and breathes spirit air, one that seeks out children who are listening and inspires them to move.

I choose a positive life, a life that reaches for the best rather than the worst, one that lifts a half full cup for a refill, not one who finds a cup half empty and becomes more empty as the day goes by. I choose to look up rather than down. I choose you.

I choose you;
yet, do I have
the capacity
to choose you
at all?
Or is my
inner force
your spirit
that motivates,
inspires,
calls me
to choose you?
If your desire
is to unite
as a testimony
to my devotion
for you,
then perhaps
my inner power
is you
and you only.

Only yours, Andrea