Becoming Something New

This morning I read Richard Rohr's devotional and was stopped in my tracks.  The meditation by Ilia Delio spoke to my soul.  The line : "For we shall become something new together."

This journey with cancer has been difficult and it has changed my prayer life.  For years I woke up and read a morning devotion and prayed and wrote in a journal.  That practice ended when I was diagnosed and I have felt like I have been floating and ungrounded but still resisted.  My theology is clear and has not changed:  I believe that God is love and God is with us always - within and without.  God is guiding, strengthening and healing.  I never ask - why me or expect that I deserve a life free of suffering.  God is here and God is mystery.  This reading is exactly on point for where my faith has evolved to over the years.

The difference is my felt experience.  I have been numb and distracted and scared.  At the same time I believe  - in my head - that God is with me and I have felt greatly supported by the love expressed by so many people over these months.  I now know that the prayers of others can make a real difference.  You pray for me when I can't or won't pray for myself. And in the mystery of God's love, it helps me.

However to become something new is to relinquish the old.  And that is what I don't want to do.  I just want to be "back to normal."  Back to having energy, and hair, and a fuller life.  There is something new that God has for me.   I write this blog and I do ruminate.  I want to have a record of this process of becoming - this infinitesimal process of letting go and what was and who I was and trusting the "something new" that I am becoming.

This truly is a cancer "Journey" and right now I am experiencing the season of Advent - waiting in the darkness for the new life that is coming.  May I trust it.

The Christic  

I am looking at a tree, but I see such astounding beauty and  
graciousness, the tree must be You, O God, 
I look at the wild weeds playing across the fields, and their 
wild joyful freedom speaks to me of You, O God. 
Yesterday, I saw a child crying alone on a busy corner, and  
the tears were real, and I thought, you must be crying, O God. 
God, you are the mystery within every leaf and grain of sand, 
in every face, young and old, you are the light and beauty  
of every person.  
You are Love itself.  
Will we ever learn our true meaning, our true identity?  
Will we ever really know that we humans are created for  
love?  
For it is love alone that moves the sun and stars 
and everything in between.  

We are trying too hard to find You, but You are already here,  
We are seeking life without You, but You are already within,  
Our heads are in the sand, our eyes are blinded by darkness,  
our minds are disoriented in our desperate search 
for meaning.  
Because You are not what we think You are:  
You are mystery.  
You are here and You are not, 
You are me and You are not,  
You are now and You are not, 
You are what we will become.  
You are the in-between mystery 
The infinite potential of infinite love,  
And it is not yet clear what You shall be,  
For we shall become something new together.