By Sister Doreen, SSJD
The March Calendar quote comes from Psalm 61:2: “From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
The Message translation of this verse: “God, listen to me shout, bend an ear to my prayer. When I’m far from anywhere, down to my last gasp, I call out, “Guide me up High Rock Mountain!” The psalm goes on: “You’ve always given me breathing room, a place to get away from it all. A lifetime pass to your safe home, an open invitation as your guest. You’ve always taken me seriously, God; made me welcome among those who know and love you.”
As we enter March the start of spring (vernal equinox), with unpredictable “lion/lamb” weather and in the midst of Lent, seems such a fitting psalm to ponder. With the changing seasons comes both relief and concern. Hence the phrase “vernal equinox,” a day when the sun crosses the equator making night and day equal in length, and lion/lamb weather: one day like a lamb, gentle and calm, and the next day like a lion, rough and roaring!
I have always found this psalm a personal prayer in times of anguish, helpful because it focuses not on turning inward and staying there, but on looking outward to the help and strength I need. It pulls me from those times when I am in the depths of burdens and heartbrokenness. I find in it the words that ask to be allowed to stand again on solid ground, seeking God’s presence as a shelter, safe, and held in the strong arms of God, to be the healing balm that I need. These are the times when knowing that God welcomes me, makes God’s home my home, enables me to let God love me. Imagine, I have a life long pass to God’s safe home! What a gift!
In my pondering I held a rock, a symbol for strength, something that in the dark seasons of my life I wanted, strength, longing for a place of shelter and protection, even a hiding place! I found Jesus’ words “Come away with me and rest awhile” became a mantra during these times. In Joan Chittister’s book “For Everything A Season” there is a quote that she uses when looking over life and the experiences we have had, she says “Here”, they shout, “What you do not understand in your own life consider again. Look newly. Look at life once more, and where you have been blinded, see, and where you have become numb to the point of the senseless, the dead of heart, now glory.” This resonates with the psalm in putting us in a place of looking outward to be lifted out of a dark season. In a very real sense, we are being asked to look with respect, love and wonder in the midst of the sadness that rushes through us, in the midst of our fears, casting glances over our shoulders at not being quite as ease in ourselves. It is from this place that we are yearning for a safer season, a chance to reach out ourselves to the protection of the God who loves us. As Bishop Riscylla Shaw said in an article in the December edition of the Anglican: “When love came down at Christmas, it came for us all. Yet some of us feel unlovable, unworthy, unforgiven. In our shared human brokenness, so when grief gets in the way, allow God to love you.” In these seasons of our life and our world, we need to allow God to love us!
I think that we can all look to the blind areas in our heart and mind and become aware of how the movement from darkness to light can bring about reconciliation and coming home again. In this awareness, we ask for the strong Rock (God’s love) to move us from resistance to understanding, from resentment to acceptance, and from blindness to seeing what we might have overlooked. I like to think and I know that God has that wonderful posture toward us — open arms, receiving us with unimaginable delight. “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.” The past, that place of anguish and broken heartedness has been transformed into something new. God has fashioned the eyes of the heart so that looking inwardly in reflection and contemplation we are moved outward to respond in love. What an amazing grace for the journey home.
Thomas Merton has been quoted as saying that “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere”. Within those outstretched arms of Love, when we allow God to love us – “something new happens, and we have the chance to release some of our rigid expectations of ourselves and of one another and see the Christ in each other.” (Riscylla Shaw)
In Common Praise, hymn book of the Anglican Church of Canada #523 Gracia Grindal wrote:
We sing to you, O God, the rock who gave us birth;
Let our rejoicing sing your name in all the earth.
To you, O God, let songs be raised in joyful hymns, our feast of praise.
We wandered far from home, out in a desert land;
You shielded with your love our fearful pilgrim band.
You kept us safe within your arms and sheltered us against the storm.
You bear us through the world, an eagle to her young,
Who rises on her wings and bears us toward the sun.
We ride the vaults of light and air and trust in your unfailing care.
O God, eternal God, we bide within your wings,
The everlasting arms to whom our praises ring.
Your word is true, your way is just, you are the God in whom we trust.
Yes! Yes! “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you” Isaiah 60:1.