Macrina Wiederkehr

There is a way that the soul can get crowded out of one's day. The soul is a bit shy and does not demand center stage. She lives a life of her own, and yet there are soulprints in every fiber of your being, even in things you've forgotten. The soul is the keeper of memories. She knows where beauty is stored. She contains the memories of your entire life. Deep in your unconscious she stands guard. If you are in need of a particular memory she can reveal it to you and help you to bear both the beauty and the pain. She knows all about the gold in your memories.

This is the only message I've been getting in prayer these days: "Forget the experts for a while. Trust your own experience." You are an offspring of the One who said, "I am who I am." If the One who gave you birth lives within you, surely you can find some resources there in your sacred Center... Remember, you are splendor!

O Loving Being! O Playful Creator! Love your way into the depths of my being today so that whatever I do will be a prayer, whether it be making bread or boiling water, visiting the sick or mowing the grass... May it all be an act of love and a feast of leisure. In all that I do, may I remember that I am a tabernacle of the Holy Mystery, a place where You dwell. May my moments of quiet listening at your feet lead me out again into the marketplace joyfully, gratefully, without complaining.

Deep within your soul
there is a KNOWING PLACE
a sanctuary where gifts are nurtured.

Enter that sacred space.

Spend time there tending your gifts.

There in the chapel of your heart
you will become a gift to be given.

Abandoning the nets of my thoughts and words, I follow You willingly into the great Silence.

For your prayer, your journey into God,
May you be given a small storm ... named after you.

You begin your storm under the Eye of God.
A watchful, caring eye
gazes in your direction
as you wrestle
with the life force within.

In the midst of these holy winds
In the midst of this divine wrestling
your storm journey
leads you into the eye,
Into the Eye of God
where all is calm and quiet.
A stillness beyond imagining!
Into the Eye of God
after the storm
Into the silent, beautiful darkness
Into the Eye of God.

'Tis good to celebrate in the Silence those
Moments of gratitude for the friends who have
walked with me ...
There is always a return gift waiting in my heart.
It is for those who took off their shoes
to be reverent with my coming,
For those who stood on tiptoes beside me
when my hope was small.
It is for those who were present
when I needed my feet washed.
It is for those who raced with me to the tomb
on the day I was certain it held
nothing but death.
It is for those who celebrated my emptiness
with me and
For those who broke with me the kind of bread
that fed my death new life.

Giving yourself up to love is falling, with complete abandon, into the hands of the living God. This is the deep, interior prayer for which we have been striving. Here we must let go our dependency on thoughts, words, and images. We go into the beautiful darkness. We stop struggling. We let the angels carry us. We let go even of our yearning for God. Nothing is left except being in God. What could I say that would matter when I am in the heart of God? Contemplation! It is like going to heaven for a while.