Gradually Growing

What nine months of attention does for an embryo

Forty early mornings will do

For your gradually growing wholeness.

                     Rumi

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we are always pilgrims

if we are alive

always moving toward something new

 

a new task

a new relationship

a new understanding

a new birth

 

but it always a journey

a process

 

Abram spent years in the wilderness

Before he became Abraham

 

Moses journeyed from princely power

to being a Bedouin shepherd

before helping set his people free

and meeting God by a burning bush

 

David went from being one so unpromising

as to not be invited to an anointing

to being the anointed

and then a King after God’s own heart

 

and even then, he journeyed through betrayal

and violence, infidelity and murder

to being one who jotted down psalms of

confession and anguish

and hope

 

who knows what inner process Mary went through

before her “yes” to the angel

who knows what kind of inner journey enabled her

birth the Sacred

with her youthful body

 

Always there is a journey

Jesus in the wilderness

Paul on the road to Damascus, and then

in dark loneliness of blindness

 

we all must journey

my journey so far has been full of twists and turns

straight paths have turned torturous

safe paths threatening

 

failure has been snatched from the of jaws of success

 

some paths have come to an end

 

and yet the process continues

for every ending means a beginning

in every failure is the seed of a new journey

 

this day I sit

as the earth burns

and my soul struggles to rise from lethargy

and I understand

 

it is time to get up

and begin again

to move, left foot, right foot, left foot (breathe)

into the unknown

 

to go to the place the Sacred with show me

(I hope)

 

It is time to say yes