Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Dear God,

Hidden away in a solitary place, allowing one's own mind the freedom to roam, to seek, to find seems to be a trait of the saints designed to help one's own spiritual condition. The mystics, pilgrim travelers in search of the Sacred Divine all resonate with my own soul.

I'm reading The Desert Pilgrim, a woman suffering from five car accidents, finding herself led to New Mexico where she visits mystery in the barrio. Her desire for healing leads her to her personal historical landmarks of faith. Revisiting the many crucifixes that once were part of her family's tradition and spiritual connection with you seems to want to bring a new age of spiritual restoration and healing to the woman.

Is it possible to revisit the places of the past that brought happiness, joy, connection? Can they bring their own kind of healing? Do they have a spiritual and emotional power that can renew the soul, cleansing it of loss and sorrow?

I can hardly put down the book. So many differences between her and myself, yet many similarities. New Mexico. Saints. Mystics. Hope for healing. New age, at least the openness to the manifestation of God through contemporary thought and practice. God at the deepest level, in the caverns of the soul. The pilgrim journey.

I seem to be doing a spiritual house cleaning. An emotional one too. Perhaps the soul goes through this periodically. Mine is with intentionality. I have found permanent lodging in my soul. In the search for the sacred, I have found my self. She is strong, knows who she is, what she longs for and expects. It is healthy, a trek to wholeness, an affirmation of creation's work in me.

I have thrown off a yoke of self doubt, finding my own self, uniquely made in your image. I like her. Self confident, yet always seeking, changing, being transformed, I like where she is headed. No doubt there is within her a permanent lodging of the Divine. Perhaps she has wandered in the spiritual playground, wandering because she has a thirst for mystery played out in spiritual relationships. She is me.

There is something within me that connects me altogether. That something is a divine resonance. Without it I am but a simple, ordinary flesh and blood character living in the everyday, taking in what I want, throwing out what I don't want, then rolling over into the next day. I want more. I am more.

I once bolted from the seminary building, ran onto the lawn, threw up my arms, tears streaming down my face and I said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Everything I had been working toward suddenly came together, a theology, a systematic way of claiming and living my faith. I saw the sense in it and felt it deeply. No longer was I tied to my grandmother's religious love, however beautiful it was for her. I had found my own. I will never forget that historical landmark of faith.

Although this current trek finds me weary, I have found the place in my soul I have searched for all my life. It is at once mystery and familiarity. Somewhere along the way, I must have lost this puzzle piece. Was I robbed of it because perhaps I was different in my way of seeking? Did I forget it, letting it distance itself for decades until I had need of it? Did someone teach me that my own unique relationship with you was not "traditional" enough? How did I lose my way?

Or perhaps I have just finally reached my destination. Maybe this is where my journey has lead me through the years. Maybe I have just discovered my soul self and am finding joy in the meeting.

All this is to say that I have wandered my whole life searching for the treasure of God. My earliest memories are of you. My most prized moments are of you. My greatest gifts are of your making. And so I find myself willing to sit back, to rock a while or perhaps being rocked in the divine cradle, giving thanks.

I am growing into my new self. I've been shedding the old clothes, seeing how they no longer fit. Like a new babe, I am trusting even as I claim my union with the body that has carried me for so long.

My pilgrimage
has led me
to where
I am.
My self
is no longer restless.
I know
who I am.
I know
my value,
the worth
given me
at my conception.
I have accepted
the words
you have offered.
"You are
my own beloved child."
I have taken up
residence with
my self
and with you
who has made me.
I am content.

Loving you always, Andrea