A Tree Full Of Angels

Sabbath time is a time when we turn our attention to what is holy, to what is sacred, to what is important. It's a time when we allow the clamor of the world to fall away and we listen for the still, small voice of God. It's a time when we allow ourselves to be embraced by the love of God, to rest in that love, and to be renewed and refreshed by it.

For your prayer
your journey into God,
may you be given a small storm
a little hurricane
named after you, persistent enough
to get your attention
violent enough
to give you to new depths
strong enough
To shake you to the roots
majestic enough to remind you of your origin:
made of the earth
yet steeped in eternity
frail human dust
yet soaked with infinity.

Today my prayer consisted in simply going to my heart and remembering all the folks I've stored there. It is not cold storage. It is a quite warm and tender place.

Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb.

Prayer is a response to God and to live coming from a heart that has been touched. How does a heart touched by God pray? Sometimes in pure gratitude it simply stands in awe rejoicing. And that is prayer! Sometimes it weeps. Sometimes it sings. At times it talks tenderly to God. At other times it might scream out in anger and pain. Sometimes it looks on the world with love, or rushes out to do good deeds. Sometimes it kneels without-stretched arms. Sometimes it merely yearns for God in deep, holy silence. All this is prayer.

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!

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.

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.