I’m not the same. That’s good news. (None of us should stay the same.)
Things are moving slowly. I don’t have the energy I’m known for. That’s also good news. (I’m not trying to paint the house or remodel a bathroom after lunch.)
I’m actually spending a lot of time in stillness. (It feels scary.)
You don’t know what you’ll find in the stillness. (What do we expect to find, I wonder, besides stillness?)
Staying in the stillness is so hard. It goes against my inner messaging: “Get off your lazy bum…” (Uh oh, I hear my Dad’s voice. He just passed, so it’s actually nice to hear his voice, despite his messaging—I think he meant well.)
The truth is: I’m healing in the stillness.
I have to get off the world’s clock. Sunrise, sunset, another day. “Time to move on, Laura.” Maybe even be on my friend’s clock or calendar (No, I’m not ready to for that. I lost my Dad and I am feeling it, today, okay?)
Yes, there is healing in the stillness and in the Saint Francis Prayer. It helps me take the focus off me and think of you. It’s nice to think of you (you, whoever you are).
I copied this prayer and I pinned it up everywhere and despite my lack of memorizing things well, I did it! (What is the name of that new drug that helps your memory? I just can’t remember.)
In the 12 years my Dad lived in a nursing room bound to his bed or wheelchair, I saw him heal. (It was healing to see him heal.) He became a lovely instrument of God’s peace and he shared that peace in the stillness.
May you receive it too:
The Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is giving that we receive.
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is dying that we are born to eternal life.
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Who can you seek to love, pardon, console or understand?