Sunny Depression by Yokko
(Please click on image for a larger version of this remarkable piece)
I posted this remarkable image several years ago. It's one that never fails to move me and it might be helpful to consider it this Lent, in prayer...
The process of healing or being reconciled
is also a coming of age,
a taking responsibility for our lives.
Negative guilt and anxiety can often hold us in a prison
which in a paradoxical way can be strangely congenial.
As long as I am locked in this state I have the perfect alibi
for not engaging with life.
We need great trust in God working in us
as we allow ourselves to live and discover the freedom
that is the other side of all the brokenness
that has hitherto cramped and even paralyzed our lives.
- Wilfred McGreal in Guilt and Healing
This "coming of age" might happen in any decade of our lives! The kind of healing and reconciliation to which Lent invites us is not a purely spiritual reality. Each of us is a mysterious combination of body and soul; each of us is an individual who knows the self only in relation to other persons, the world around us and God. Healing and reconciliation may begin deep within our soul, our heart, our mind but they blossom in how we allow them to take flesh in our life and loves.
In my 10 minutes of prayer today, I might ask the Lord:
How do I need to grow up and grow out of
whatever shackles me, Lord?
What imprisons me, Lord?
What locks me in?
What keeps others out?
Nothing keeps you from me, Lord,
but what keeps me from you?
Is that me in the image, bathed in your light,
incarcerated by bars I might easily escape?
What keeps me from engaging
with the life you've given me to experience,
the life you've given me to share?
Help me to trust that you are working and moving
in my heart and soul, Lord...
Help me to know and trust that you desire my freedom,
my freedom to be the person you made me to be,
my freedom to be alive and at peace in your presence...
Heal my brokenness, Lord, and help me move beyond it
to you, to others and towards all that you have in store for me...
Even in my brokenness, Lord, help me to be quiet, within...
Help me to be still...
Help me to know that you are with me
and will never leave my side...
It occurs to me that this post might pair well with an earlier one written by James Martin, S.J.
Are you new to "Praying 10 Minutes a Day in Lent" - or are you having trouble getting started? The first installment offers some thoughts on getting started, as do the subsequent posts in the series. So take a look and join us!
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WONDERFUL...your invitation to 10 minutes has been my favorite Lenten practice, the 10 stay with and speak to me throughout the day, either for myself or to be shared with another.
ReplyDeleteYou do have a way of speaking to the heart that creates desire and hope that is simply WONDERFUL!
JW