Start from the Center

The other day, after a meeting at church, I started to get into my car when I noticed the weeds in the labyrinth garden. I felt like a neglectful mother! It was nine o’clock in the morning, the sun was out and the next thing I knew I was squatting in the garden, hands in the dirt, in my good shoes, pulling weeds. As I looked out at the desolation of an acre of overgrowth, a wave of discouragement swept over me. It looked like a war-zone, as overwhelming as the nightly news, the economy, poverty and injustice combined. I wanted to run. But instead, I just hunkered down in a 6-foot square of earth and chose gratitude for my attitude. Soon, I felt the sun warming my back, became awake to the sound of birdsong overhead and the noise of children at play. “This is the day the Lord hath made, let me rejoice and be glad in it.” Here was good work I could do, praise I could offer and strength I could receive. In a short time, a satisfying square of weed-free earth emerged. I looked over it and declared, like my Father once did in His garden, “it is good!” That morning the weedy wasteland became my blessing–place.

As I finished up, I glanced over at the labyrinth and decided to walk it before I left. I brushed my gritty hands over my pants, and clear as a bell, I heard God’s silent voice in my head….”start at the center.” What! Skip the walk in? “You ‘weeded in’ today…..all you need to do is walk out.” I had never done this before - skipped this ritual step - and it felt a bit illegal! Where were the labyrinth police? Shamelessly, I crossed over all the lines and went directly to the center, smiling as if God and I shared a guilty secret! Then, I slowly walked out - rejoicing all the way. Gardening with God was a lesson in both my limits and His liberation. An adventure in grace!

A few weeks earlier, a similar incident had happened to me. I had gone to the Cathedral downtown to hear Lauren Artress, a leading educator on the labyrinth. She was delightful and generous with instructive and humorous stories. During the morning, we were challenged to ask a question as we arrived at the center of the labyrinth: “Lord, what is at MY center?” As we adjourned to walk the Cathedral’s beautiful indoor labyrinth, I held that question in my heart. Arriving at the center, I sat silently for a long time. Finally, I reverently, nervously asked God…”Lord, what is at MY center?” There followed a long pregnant pause, then, no kidding, an ironic tone of voice inside me whispered: “I AM!” I wept. Then I laughed! - the sheepish laugh of the absent-minded! I was a little relieved. I thought God would reveal to me some stinky compost rotting at my center, but instead, there He was, the Eternal Gardener, at home in my heart, hunkered down, tending my soul! So, lately I am trying to remember….start from the center.

Tending the Spaces

“Stir up in me the flame of love, O all consuming fire……
Stir up in me the flame of love, O all consuming fire…..”

For over a year, I have been praying these lines as I use my Anglican rosary.
That I’ve come to use and love a rosary at all, is such mystery to me. But here I am….letting my fingers do the walking! I wasn’t raised in a tradition that used rosaries. In fact they were a source of silent scorn: a superstitious incantation, a counting device for quantity not quality, a crutch for those who didn’t know how to pray. I’ve learned a lot since then, mostly about myself. I’ve swallowed a lot of deep-dish humble pie. And I now find these same beads a source of comfort and mobility. Especially when I am “prayer-alyzed” – you know, experiencing the occasional spiritual inertia. The rosary also quiets and tames my inner world when my outer world is yelling and distracting me, which is fairly often.

It all started when I found a small sack on a table at church. It contained a rosary made of humble knotted black string and a folded prayer to use. It was from Africa, and it was free! With such low risk, it was a perfect way to experience my first Anglican rosary. I loved it. My husband loved it. We eventually took our worn “string-beads” to a bead shop in Sellwood and conscripted the owner to make us two Anglican rosaries. She was fascinated! We carefully selected each bead. Later, foraging at Goodwill turned up two cool wooden boxes to store them in. Oh, how we love paraphernalia! But I am way off-subject. I wanted to talk about the prayer, not about the vehicle of prayer...though it is a fine vehicle!

That little folded up verse that came with my African beads, has remained my favorite. It’s called: A Transfiguration Prayer. “Stir up in me the flame of love, O all consuming fire…” over every smooth sphere between the cruciform beads, I pray that prayer. Over each of the 28 days of the weeks beads….my inner voice, mumbling like river water over stones, is carried in silent pilgrimage, more a passenger than a pray-er.

“Stir up in me the flame of love, O all consuming fire” – here is the inexhaustible fuel to discover God as the source of all creative energy. The dunamis – power. He is heat and light. How eagerly I take refuge in the warmth of His comfort. But I also must endure the dangerous and exciting process of His refining fire: watching my own impurities surface, as he turns up the heat in my life. I confess, I sometimes become a “fire-fighter,” both praying for AND resisting this summons to be made purer, more integrated, more grateful, less acquisitive. What a mystery is fire….an inextinguishable, mesmerizing, burning bush mystery!
On a cold, snowy day last January, I attended a day retreat. The retreatants were all asked to meditate on a poem by Judy Sorum Brown, called Fire. Its’ opening lines opened my eyes:

What makes a fire burn
Is space between the logs,
A breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
Too many logs
Packed in too tight
Can douse the flames
Almost as surely
As a pail of water would.

So building fires
Requires attention
to the spaces in between,
As much as to the wood…..

Creating space - breathing places! This revealed to me my integral part in the refining process. I need to find and tend the spaces. To move aside things in my life which are packed too tight. To simply make room for silence, for rest, for meditation and the breathing rhythms of my rosary prayer. I cannot sanctify myself, but if I tend my spaces….the flame of God’s love will do the rest.…“stir up in me the flame of love, O all consuming fire…” Amen.