Life, time, pathways, experiences… I sit here feeling the need and desire to write, and those words are what flow through my head… Life, time, pathways, experiences… Interconnected words, related to one another, various meanings, various uses, various understandings of what they mean. I don’t know why these words sit upon my mind, upon my fingertips and upon my tongue here on this forth day of the month that caries a name that says it is eighth, but due to changes fell to tenth, or did it jump up to tenth?
I find myself in a place of confusion, of mixed being. The various aspects that make up who I am are not being fed and nourished and fed in the ways they should (well with the exception of my physical body, which I think is being nourished all right).
I find my mind distracted, unable to focus. I find myself searching, seeking, unable to find, and unknowing what it is I am seeking. I find myself knowing I need to take time to sit, to reflect, to commune with the Holy. I am a mystic, it is at the core of who I am, and yet I find myself not taking time to be… to be the one the Holy made me to be… I find my heart aching for the injustices in the world, yet find my actions limited, my response not quite enough… I see possibility, I see hope, and then find myself not acting and taking the steps to allow possibilities to become reality, I find myself desiring to learn, to study to reflect, and engage for a bit here and there, feeling the warmth of learning, of challenging my mind, and then I find myself just passing time, not engaging not seeking… YES I KNOW I AM NOT WRITING COMPLEATE THOUGHTS….. That’s not what I need right now, I need to allow my mind to flow, for this to be expressed, to be shared….
I find myself in community, with people I once knew… I see hope and excitement, and yet I find myself sadden. I find my idealized reality shattered, I find the faith community that isn’t as far along in understanding who they are called to be than I recall them being when I left so many years ago. I don’t sense the same level passion I once thought I encountered… did I dream it? Did it dwindle? Is it that my journey has taken me so many places, that my understandings and recollections of what was do not reflect what truly was? I don’t know.. But I must ask: What it is, at this time and these places that I have to offer to help bring about the peace of Christ. How do I step in, find my footing, find my prophetic voice amongst the masses? How do I express the restoring spirit of the living Gospel of the Risen Christ, if I refuse to partake of the living water that I am called to share? I need to partake of that water more fully, I need to share it more fully. I need to be ……….. Lyle and not ……. Lyle (random number of full stops, they do not relate to letters in the words I thought before my name). I need to find interfaith community to be part of in helping engage my calling as a disciple and minister within a particular faith community as we seek to engage our eternal calling with and for the world. I need to find friends, to share with, reflect with, engage with. I need to find companion to share life with, to serve with, to become more whole with. I need to engage my faith community, to challenger my faith community, and myself, to become “Community of Christ” in all that we are, and not just in ideas and name, and occasional action or place and time of being.
So here is the prayer upon my heart right now:
“Holy One, of amazing love, grace and beauty. It is I Lyle, one of your many creations. I sit here, within this moment of time, in n this place, and I pause…. ever so briefly… I pause to give thanks for the wonders of your creation, for your love, your grace, your forgiveness, hope…, which often I feel I do not feel I deserve. I sit her, I ponder the future, I reflect on the past, and seek for the present…. and yet I am uncertain. I fumble, I falter, I find myself half heartedly engaging you… I seek something. I use ‘I need’ and focus on self or focus on other… When it should be ‘we’, the inclusive collective needs and desires of all of your creation, we who cry out, we who shudder, from tiniest atom to spiraling galaxies… we need healing, especially from the greed, hatred, inaction and wrong actin of humanity, over and over again. We need forgiveness, but perhaps I need to start with me, so that I can be more a part of the we.
Here at this time, Holy One I turn to you for direction, for healing and hope. May I be open to your Spirit, may I allow your Spirit to breathe anew upon me, so that I may be open to where it leads me, be willing to take the risks that are needed, to take the time to pause, and the time to run as needed… I pray as well that “We” the we’s of family, communities, humanity, creation… may do so as well. I seek new understanding, I seek old understanding… I seek peace, but not the peace of this world, but of the Living risen Christ… your peace, true peace… Peace of action and inaction, peace that is beyond understanding and yet so simple.
Holy One, May I take the time to be who and what you call me to be, may we pause and be…
In the name of the One who came and taught, lived, died, and rose I come to you, Amen.”
I close these words, with the following desires, ideas and plans: To form and reform, spiritual practices that will aid me and perhaps us upon a journey. To seek to take time to redesign this place of expressing my journey… stay tune for future changes… Let us journey together…
Peace,
— Lyle II