Synchronicity, isn’t it, that we celebrate spring amid this pandemic—pan-deepening? All around we observe creation in the midst of birth pains. The slow, sure greening is generative hope. New birth is not only happening around us, it’s within us. The Spirit is arousing within us, praying us. With Earth, we too experience birth pangs as we pray with hope, to engage a great transformation occurring in the world.
A Prayerful Listen: I Am a God Nearby
by David Kauffman, Be Still CD (Click here to listen.)Chorus: I am a God nearby, I am not far away (2)
I am a God nearby, I am not far away from you.Just as the air that you breathe is essential
So is my presence to you
You would not cover your lips and be breathless
Why then keep your heart from my view
It only makes you believe
As the deceivers deceived
That I have left you, I have forsaken you.I know you have tirelessly sought out to find me
Like some explorer might do
Gone to the ends of the earth for a cause
In my name have you named what you do
But under your feet is the ground
Where my joy can be found
So close your eyes and feel my presence
For …
May our prayer ready us to participate in this transformation, while holding in our hearts all who are suffering.
Sonnet on Suffering Transformed
by Rainer Maria RilkeLike cloud-shapes, torn and molded by the wind,
the world is being changed, and rapidly.
What comes into the Fullness
falls toward the Ancient Source, and gratefully.Soaring over the tumult and the change,
like some great bird, borne further and higher,
intones the Song that pierced the dawn
on that First Day, O God of the lyre.No one ought ever love their suffering,
but no one ever loves without its pain;
and as we die, we come to wonderingif there was something we could not yet see—
that winged Thing
that merges with Earth’s suffering
to make us what we otherwise would never be.
Our call is to sense the deeper invitation this pandemic offers. How might we be conscious of the transformation occurring within ourselves, our communities, nations and the global Earth community as we live through this time? Perhaps one of the most important contributions we can make in this challenging time is to prayerfully consider:
How is it for you as you sense the world rapidly changing?
Where/how do you find the grace to live peacefully through the change, trusting transformation?
In what ways are you sensing this crisis is making us “what we otherwise would never be”?
May we have the grace to wait with hope and with patience, trusting that the Spirit is indeed interceding through our wordless groans as we seek to participate in this great transformation.
May it be so.
(The core of this reflection is prompted by an April 20, 2020, prayer reflection sent by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) to women religious across the world.)
—Ann Jackson, PBVM, Prairiewoods spiritual services coordinator