Tag: imaginative prayer

In The Heart of Our Darkness

In The Heart of Our Darkness

My heart is filled with so much longing.

Is it the season of Advent which fills it with yearning and anticipation? Or is it the state of my being at this time? Or is it simply what it means to be human?

Regardless of the cause, I am left in the agony of waiting during these shortening winter days. In some ways, anticipation is delightful, inviting a sense of looking forward to something and a source of hope for the future. Yet in other ways it can be draining, one’s being filled with a fervent desire for a fulfillment which is not yet here and the remembrance of that lack is persistent. While we cannot change that we wait, we can change how we wait. In recent days, two things have come into my mind and heart which have invited me to consider how I’m waiting even if they don’t completely change my experience of it.

The first was a moment in prayer a few weeks ago. It can be easy for me to feel that while God has a plan for me, He has perhaps overlooked moving forward with the next step. Yet I know that God wastes nothing, forgets nothing, overlooks nothing, and is in no way negligent with any aspect of any person. So what came into my prayer was the image of my whole heart, my whole being, every drop of my present life and circumstances being poured out into His hands. Like a bucket of water, it flowed from me and was captured tenderly, completely in His cradled hands. As individual drops moved toward the edges, seemingly prepared to fall carelessly to the ground, Our Lord managed to keep them all within the crevice of His hands.

Nothing was lost.

No fleeting emotion was unworthy of His attention, no aching wound escaped His notice or care, no mundane moment of my life was devoid of His presence and acknowledgement. I’ve come back to this image many times. My whole life, the complexities of my heart, the things I love and hate are all held by Jesus. Nothing escapes His notice or loving gaze.

The second is the idea of not letting my heart be troubled. It has come up in various ways and in different devotionals I’m listening to or reading. What has caught my attention most recently is the idea of letting my heart be troubled. So perhaps my life is filled with waiting and uncertainties. At least I can strive to not be troubled by the lack of clarity, to receive what is offered from the Lord and trust that He will provide. The storm can rage around us, but we can seek to not let the storm become interior. Not being troubled becomes an incredibly active thing rather than the passive thing it might sometimes seem to be.

Continue reading “In The Heart of Our Darkness” →

Being Home

Being Home

I love home.

During the throes of the pandemic, I was unbothered by the experience of being home day after day. I always imagine Saturday mornings going to a coffee shop, but I would generally rather just be home after a long week. It isn’t luxurious or perennially tidy, but it is a place I love to be.

So it probably isn’t too surprising that it is natural for me to find that prayer brings me to a home. While not physically a replica of my home, it is nonetheless an image of home. Sometimes, it happens that surprising, amazing things transpire in prayer while I’m “home”–yet so often it is a source of the ordinary, the seemingly mundane and yet the achingly beautiful. Recently, prayer which includes Our Lady has found me at a large kitchen island, watching her fingers expertly knead the dough, crafting loaves of bread, reminding me that waiting for it to rise is important, and delightfully covered in a dusting of flour.

My mom didn’t make homemade bread all of the time, but it wasn’t an unusual occurrence. It didn’t take too much imagination to find myself watching my heavenly mother do the same thing. In fact, the first time it came up in prayer, it seemed almost too easy, too natural, and thus a little surprising. A simple task, completed numerous times, and yet a joy to watch unfold. Leaning on the counter or helping spread melted butter on a soon-to-be spiral of cinnamon rolls, my prayer was taking me to an encounter with Our Lady which was simple and ordinary. I found myself posing questions to her, pondering the significance of Our Lady creating bread while the Bread of Life had been nourished in her womb, and entering into the life of the Holy Family as St. Joseph and Jesus would casually stop by to speak with Our Lady.

Continue reading “Being Home” →