Nov 4, 2020
Greetings!
I have to keep reminding myself today to breathe. On one hand I knew we would likely not have answers last night, and that we might not have answers today, but this in-between place, this limbo is very unsettling. Where do we go when we’re searching, when we’re scared, when we’re anxious?
I’m picturing the Giant Sequoia trees. Some of them are thousands of years old. How have they withstood the storms of life, the winds, the droughts, the earthquakes, the trauma? They only grow in groves, and they intertwine their roots together under the surface of the soil so that they might support one another. They form community! And they rely on community when the storms rage. And they continually move, reach and stretch in the direction of the light!!
We are on a journey. I take courage in the fact that the count is still coming in, and then I remember that the election results are not the journey, they are our current hurdle. The journey is much bigger. Nelle Morton said that “The journey is our home.”
As Lori and I were both in the office today we commiserated a bit together 😉 but then we stepped back. She recalled a prayer written by Edward Hays:
A Pilgrim’s Companion Psalm
~By Edward Hayes
The road home, O God, seems long
and at times is difficult and painful.
Grant me a holy communion, a companionship with others,
as I journey homeward to you.
I live in times of great trial:
an age of change sits at my door.
Without a community with others
I can so easily lose the way,
can be led astray by illusions of holiness,
misguided by my ego’s desires.
Open my eyes to your precious gift
of the Church’s communion of Saints.
“Saint” is a name I would never call myself,
but the treasury of my faith
teaches me about my holy birthright,
that I am part of the web if sacred communion,
uniting me with all other home-bound pilgrims
and with all who now rejoice
at their homecoming in you.
May I feed this day upon the food
of this mystic, holy communion (of saints)
with those friends and fellow pilgrims
with whom I share this planet Earth,
as well as those saints now fully one with you.
May my awareness of my companion journey
with all the saints
deepen my life of prayer
and fertilize my faith in you, my Beloved.
By this communion of holy ones
may I be daily challenged
to greater compassion and charity
as I walk the way of the pilgrim.
Pilgrims are a people in motion, people who are on the way. Pilgrimage… a journey, a journey of seeking meaning. We are Pilgrims on this journey, and along the way there are moments of utter disorientation, confusion, worry. But that's why we have each other!
“The road home, O God, seems long
and at times is difficult and painful.
Grant me a holy communion, a companionship with others,
As I journey homeward to you.”- Edward Hays
If you’d like to gather tonight with fellow pilgrims… join us tonight on Zoom at 7:00 for an hour of community connection (communion) with one another.
Many blessings,
Bishop Denise
