Indeed this last day of this year.
The last day of this year that I get to sit on the park bench with You. I was going to say – Best Friend – but that seems too personal for a ‘being’ who is Best Friends with everyone, if they so desire. (I think of the Marine/non-religious, raised Catholic/historian that I met at the inn, who I pray You will work on his spirit, that he might return to Your Loving Arms.) Because indeed they are truly Loving Arms.
I can hear the throng of doubters. “Prove it!”
Like the cry of “Crucify Him” from the past.
It is all the same, just a different time, different place. “Crucify Him and let’s see if He jumps off the cross.
“Prove Yourself!”
“Prove it!”
I can. And I can’t
I can because I cannot imagine a day without Him.
I can’t because the proof is in the spirit, and that’s a world of contradictions that cannot be proved in the physical world until something personal but outside the self happens. I know…theological jargon. But I am not a theological person; I am a woman making her way in a world that if it wasn’t for The Rock I’d be adrift and drown.
“No, you’d pick yourself up. You always do.”
I do. From experience I know I do but as I rise back up my head is full of sour speeches and self talk like an under tow, never ending.
By myself I cannot prove that water and steam are one in the same. But if an external heat source is added under a pan of water, that fact become obviously clear – water and steam are one in the same.
This year the rosary was added to my way of praying. I had been searching on my own, experimenting with different apps that prayed the rosary, but none of the methods stuck as real. Until You sent me Gina. At first she was just a catholic woman voicing an opinion on a podcast from a religious, cultural and historical point of view. But week after week she kept returning. And then the questions began and her answers were sweetly replied. She became a host favorite and then a cohost herself. One day she popped on her own space and said The Glorious Rosary. I bookmarked the space. Then week after week I revisited the bookmark and prayed at work with it/her. And something different happened. An order and peace at work that I began to count on. And with it I prayed for Gina when her own work conditions became difficult, when her cohost friend became concerned with family, when a coworker began to act strangely. Nothing dynamic or in-your-face obvious happened. I just knew I was heard. And that I mattered. That the rosary mattered. And work became bearable/organized and doably calm. Then Gina added The Joyous Rosary and so I had new purpose and procedure. It as as if Mother Mary who had been a white cloud over my head since childhood had come full circle into my life, and now held me as I had prayed as a child.
On this last day of the year the war in Ukraine continues but in ways I never imagined. How could I? I am only ‘man’ and You are ‘God’. A new world order is forming, not peace. Friction can not make peace, but something new. Personally? I see more blatantly the lines between good and evil. And I choose good! Man’s good is not perfect, but it is a movement, a current that swallows up the old to discover new lands, like islands in the sea, new ideas, new ways of looking at the old. War is still ugly and cruel at best. But I am grateful to be a part of this new order from the ashes blood and tears of those I will never meet, but am thankful in knowing about.
I have lived long enough to see black/white tv’s evolve into cell phones, antennas evolve into internet connections, and google kneel before AI. The universe has become a tear drop in the palm of my hand, and everything imagined can become real…ie 3d imaging…oh how I love the little 3d dragons… With all these changes comes responsibility, but also excitement. The anything is possible becomes the flesh and bones of life itself, instead of some theoretical quotation from an ancient text or creative approach to God Himself.
And yet with all these changes, You are unchanging…indeed the Rock that never moves. Thankyou. Thankyou. Thankyou.
So my dear Lord, meet me on the park bench facing the frozen lake one last time before the year ends. I will sit with You. I will bask in Your Presence. In Your Love. In Your Hope. One last time. I love You and I thank You for everything.
“Let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.” (Rev 22:17)
I reread Rev 22:17 over and over. I closed my eyes to imagine this water of life. And He held my hand in His. He pulled me to my feet, leading me to the frozen edge of the lake. “Come.” I hesitated. I mean I am from New England. No lake frozen over in December is safe to walk on…not yet. “Trust?” Hmm. For all my brave and loving words had anything really changed? I took a couple cautious steps onward. The ice cracked, the jagged kind that can only lead to soften mush. “Trust?” Hmm. “The way forward will be scary. You’ll never know for sure what way is safe. But My Hand will never leave yours. This is My Way. Coming?”
“Savior, be born in each pf us who raises his face to thy face, not knowing fully who he is or who thou art, knowing only that thy love is beyond his knowing and that no other has the power to make him whole. Lord Jesus, to each who longs for thee – even though he has forgotten thy name. Come quickly. Amen” (Buechner)
The ice cracked again. But I took another step. And another. I don’t know what tomorrow holds…about life or family or nation or internation, but I do know that in the peace of this morning with You, at the lake’s edge, I would rather follow You than the inclinations of my own or any other person. Thankyou for a full mind boggling year. And thankyou for whatever lies ahead.
The last day of the year that I can whisper, I can say, I can shout, “I love You!”