Home!

“I long, as does every human being, 

to be at home wherever I find myself.”

-Maya Angelou

Home! That's the subject line from an email of my friend who just came back from a short, sweet, "very, very great" vacation.

I describe home as that place where I feel welcome as I am. Where I am allowed to be who I am. Accepted as I am. Where I feel comfortable. No posturing. No games played. No intrigues. I guess with that description, the home I am talking about is not a physical place, but a space reserved for me. I can say with confidence that in this life, one of my homes is my wife's heart. I am all of the above in her heart.

Another is St Placid Priory where I am nourished, heart, body, and soul. The nuns provide a space for me, physical and emotional and spiritual, when I visit. Then there's my oblate community. They are not names and faces, but souls. When we meet, we are a gathering of souls, of hearts.

The home improvement project that consumes me is this home called "Roy." It's my life project. The makeover will last that long. And only if I stay on it, without resting, with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strength. With God's grace and blessing, I want it to be a house of prayer, where Alleluia is the first word of the day, where Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus is constantly chanted, where Amen is the last word uttered every night.

Ultimately, my home is the Beloved. With the Holy One, I am more or less than the "I am" I think I know. I am loved more than I can understand, more than I can bear.

How about you? Where or what is home for you? What is the invitation do you hear in Jesus' words: "My house is the house of prayer: but you have made it a den of thieves?"

Let's have a few moments of silence for those without a home, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Even those I will bring 

to My holy mountain. 

And make them joyful in My house of prayer. 

Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices 

will be acceptable on My altar; 

For My house will be called a house of prayer 

for all the peoples.

-Isaiah 56

Listen uses same letters as Silent

I just came back from a retreat given by my Oblate Director, Sr Lucy Wynkoop at St Placid Priory. It focused on Joan Chittister's Illuminated Life: Monastic Wisdom for Seekers of Light. It's an ABC of "qualities the world's most ancient of seekers say are the components of a contemplative life."

Sr Lucy chose ten qualities and enriched the discussion by including glorious illuminations from the magnificent St John's Bible. One of the qualities discussed was Silence which I chose for my assignment. With a quote from the book, I painted a watercolor portrait of Sr Redempta of Tanzania who is a guest at the Priory while she is studying at nearby St Martin's College.

The calligraphy on the portrait says:

Silence: It is the void in which God and I meet in the center of my soul.

Where in nature do you find sacred silence? How do you access that in yourself?What benefits might one get from practicing silence in this noisy world?

I was also tasked to offer body prayers for each quality. Let me share with you the movements we used for Silence. I used Sh'ma from the Torah which means (I liberally paraphrase Rabbi Shawn Israel Zevit, from SDI's Newsletter Listen, 3.2)  the final exhale as we go back to the Source of All Breath:

Standing on holy ground, prayer hands on chest, we say:

Ssssshhhhhhh.......

(the sound of silence, of quieting the mind so we can hear the still, small voice within)

Open the arms, we intone:

Mmmmmmmmm.....

(the sound of contentment, of having enough, of abundance...)

Bending forward, as we say:

Ahhhhhhhh....

(the universal sound of surrender, of letting go, of release into the unknown...)

Amen.