Crooked Path Prayer

I talk funny. Not as funny as some of y'all do, but my flat Southern I's may fall crooked on some of your ears. I grew up at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains, where we learned from an early age that crooked is good.

I'm not talking about the raving racist crooked that hides in dark hollers, but the crooked of muddy mountain trails that teach us to be aware and pay attention. Attention to flowers, to the wind, to our direction.

I pray my Southern voice might keep you aware of the beauty of your own crooked, mountainous path. Aware that slow is good — especially when it comes to growing a camellia or making a coconut cake.

Let me say that one more time: Slow is good.

I pray that while you read this book, you embrace your belovedness as a wandering child of God.

Both lost and found.

Amen.

Beginnings

Definitions

Noun:

The point in time or space at which something begins. The first part or earliest stage of something. The background or origins of a person or organization.

Beginning of Beginning — Ha!

What words and emotions come to mind when you hear the word beginning, beginnings, or begin?

Throughout the Torah of Judaism is the maxim All beginnings are hard, with the explanation that enduring these difficult beginnings leads to transformation. What are examples of this truth?

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth ...

Psalm 111:10

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever.

Wisdom of Solomon 6:17

The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction, and concern for instruction is love of her ...

1 John 2:24

Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you will abide in the Son and in the Father.

* * *

... to begin a new life afresh ... I replied: we must become somebody who seeks and finds God in all things and at all times, in all places, in all company and in all ways. — Meister Eckhart (C. 1260–1327/8), Christian mystic

A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.

— Amy Tan, The Bonesetter's Daughter

You've got a chance to start out all over again. A new place, new people, new sights. A clean slate. See, you can be anything you want with a fresh start.

— Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks; and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end. (Jo March)

— Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

For it is only by accepting and solving our problems that we can beginto get right with ourselves and with the world about us, and with Him who presides over us all.

— Alcoholics Anonymous, Step Twelve

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

— Seneca

* * *

When we consider beginning, we invoke possibility and transformation. No matter what the dark night brings, every morning when we arise, each time we celebrate the Eucharistic feast with the body and blood of Christ, every Easter, we begin again.

What have been the significant beginnings of your life?

How have those beginnings transformed you?

Are there ways you experience endings differently as a result of that transformation?

What are the identifying marks of the many new yous that have been born?

What are ways you have guided others in their beginnings?

* * *

Now is a good time to listen to Semisonic's song "Closing Time," with a nod to Seneca, from 1998.

Ending

Eastering

It was early in my Eastering that day I looked within. Shroud cloths lay discarded round me, Mute evidence — marking end of real time And new beginnings.

Now I stood Naked before the tomb of who I'd tried to be, of who I thought I was.

And tasted the bitter fact I was no longer me.

That diligent, industrious, ever-busy me saw her fibrous web of self-deceit torn away piece by painful piece. Each piece held up for mocking, flogging, self-derision By a self who knows her own truth — Each tattered shroud mocked for the flimsy mask each had always been.

It has been insidious. Shroud upon shroud, layer after layer, year after year. Muffling me, Entangling me, Until that Holy Saturday I gasped for breath God's Breath Holy Breath Praying her inspiration to fill my soul.

I then entombed myself with proper care and purpose until the sound of rolling stone brought me to reality.

Then I fell against my yesterdays, mourning and beating my breast at the falling of each winding cloth, For each proclaimed mask of the person who would never again be me. When I awoke I was empty-tombed. God had drawn me into Resurrection reluctantly, fearfully.

All I could hear was God's soft voice, asking me to yield. In giving my obedience to her will I find myself Rising free from tattered shrouds Rising free from fear Rising free from falseness, As I yield.

Arisen I now awake revealed. Naked, vulnerable, No protective masks separating me from thee.

My tomb lies empty in my Eastering As I move to share Jesus' Resurrection reality.

— The Rev. Diane moore, Women's Uncommon Prayers

Hope

Definitions

Noun:

A feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen. A person or thing that may help or save someone. Grounds for believing that something good may happen. A feeling of trust.

Verb:

Want something to happen or be the case.

Beginning

List the words, thoughts, emotions you associate with the word hope.

What are the ways hope has, or has not, been active in your life this week?

Hope can be distinguished from other psychological vehicles, such as self-efficacy and optimism.... In contrast to both self- efficacy and optimism, people with hope have both the will and the pathways and strategies necessary to achieve their goals. — Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD, Psychology Today (ONLINE)

Havel had said that people struggling for independence wanted money and recognition from other countries; they wanted more criticism of the Soviet empire from the West and more diplomatic pressure. But Havel had said that they were things they wanted; the only thing they needed was hope. Not that pie in the sky stuff, not a preference for optimism over pessimism, but rather an "orientation of the spirit." The kind of hope that creates a willingness to position oneself in a hopeless place and be a witness, that allows...