July 10, 2011

I’ve been anticipating the 10th.

It’s my favorite meditation in the CDP:

“. . . Land of my fathers, how I long to return, to touch the earth, and find again thy sacred paths. . .”

I get shivers typing it out. We leave on that very pilgrimage in just two days.

Pilgrimage.

It was the name of the “last stone” from my sabbatical. It was the idea at the very beginning of 7 years of Sundays in 2003. It’s not so much a journey to a place, though place figures large in all of this. It’s an interior pilgrimage.

On the interior, I find puzzle pieces still. Now some are integrated. My father’s home has been absorbed into the “New Monastic” puzzle piece by serving as the resource for making the trip to Northumberland, and (not insignificantly)saving the house we currently live in from being sucked into the housing market sink hole that so many others have fallen into. While this is not nearly as sexy a use of that puzzle piece as I would have hoped for, it no less a significant one: providing my family with a stable base of operation from which we can strike out and take other risks.

The MBE puzzle piece is now gaining momentum. There is every indication that this endeavor CAN succeed.

So for the time being, all that requires my attention are the sacred paths of my fathers.

I am glad that I re-read portions of this blog. It has caused that word to lodge in my consciousness once again:

Pilgrimage.

Happy are those who strength comes from you, God, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage . . .Psalm 84

2 thoughts on “July 10, 2011

  1. “providing my family with a stable base of operation from which we can strike out and take other risks.” This really jumped off the page at me. I like this idea, this very reasonable position. I will pass it on to my husband of 18 years. It’s a very wise way to view provision. Love to you. Diving into your blog even though I should be folding laundry.

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