The Moon(!?)rise

I spent this weekend, Friday/8:15 PM-Sunday/Noon in a silent retreat, speaking only to discuss my silence with a spiritual director for three 20-minute periods and to say AMEN to the Body of Christ at Saturday mass. I won't get into a heavy discussion of all that a silent retreat brings out, challenges, enables, etc. until after I have given myself a few days for processing and reflection.

In the meantime, I wanted to share my journaling from Saturday morning when I woke up at 6:15 to watch the sun rise from the comfortable seat of a stump on the coast of St. Joe's lake. As much as I like some of what I wrote, these entries precedes the struggle intensifying in me, as directed by the retreat's goal, to move away from my brain--from doing and analyzing--to my heart to feel God ... this is stuff I will need to continue to process and grow with and will only begin to scratch the surface of here.

The retreat calls you to move away from problem-solving, worrying, and stressing to a completely removed contemplation in the heart between you and God and nothing or no one else-- a difficult experience for me being someone who places God's love and presence so strongly in others. I was struggling mightily to narrow my focus to just me and God, and the struggle showed an empty part of my spirituality: I do not have a relationship with God independent of my life and world, and I need to build that foundation to rest the balance of myself on top of...

NO. 3 / 11-14, 6:56 AM

I woke up at 6:15 this morning with the words to George Harrison stuck in my head: "What is life without your love? Who am I without you by my side?" I gathered myself and bundled up to come watch the sunrise. What I didn't expect to see was the preceding MOONrise. For the ashes of this week's new moon rose an ever-so-slight waxing crescent. As I watched the faint glimmer of light rise quickly through the sky, I was enthralled by God's imagery. From a completely dark and unseeable new moon, I come just in time to see the genesis of the moon's rebirth. It goes through phases of fullness/luminosity and darkness, but in the total invisibility is the NEW moon. Out of this new moon comes the beginning of fullness, and the waxing crescent's rise will bring its wake the absolute fullness of the sun. For out of darkness comes the greatest light; it's most dark before light. God has called us, claimed by Christ as God's own people-- holy nation, royal priesthood, soon to be as the sun rises, walking in God's wondrous light.

NO. 4 / 11-14, 7:49 AM

PRAYER PERIOD II
CANTICLE OF THE TURNING

My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn!

I'm not crying, but the sun has not risen from behind the power plant as I look out over St. Joseph's Lake. But in fitting with the power that verse one has struck within me this morning, "my spirit sings of the wondrous things that you bring to the ones who wait." My spirit does not really sing that on its own like it should; rather, it is just taken by the power of the song and the strength of the hope in conviction the song entails, and it left the meaning until now.
The mini-discernments in minute-by-minute life have been teaching me, most recognizably over the last six months, that patience is such a virtue. I have learned to be more patient with the people and events of everyday life, and now the challenge is to stretch that out and relationships will be a great test and growing experience. As the sun finally starts to peek over the power plant, I find hope in the rewards of patience and hope reflection and quiet both now and in coming months can help me reground myself in moderate patience and allow me to mix patient waiting with active courses of doing-- patience must be underlying my heart and mind, but it cannot breed hopelessness, complacency, or worst of all, passivity. Especially as I continue to embrace the call to love generously and take risks in living that, patience cannot mean standing still. It does involve a deeper embrace of recognizing that difference between lack of response and rejection and holding fast to the principle that love never fails. It will also require and hopefully foster a deeper sense of trust in God-- I must grow towards the ideal of reaching out to God with my hands in such a trusting manner as a small child confidently takes its father's hand.

Could the world be about to turn? The world is about to turn. It IS turning.

Dan (8:02 AM THE SUN IS UP.)