Daily Reading for March 6
I don’t believe in spiritual formulae anymore. I believe God presents each of us with opportunities for redemption, and we either name them or not, embrace them or not. We can’t anticipate those moments—we can only become ready as best we can and pray for the grace that we will experience God. We ready our lamps with the enlightening oil of inner work. We feed the soul in the inner world—in meditation, prayer, study, reading, psychoanalysis or therapy, creative arts, woolgathering, dream work, thinking, dialoguing. Each one’s way in unique and belongs to her alone. We commit to know, to love, to become ourselves, and to stay with it. All moments are God’s moments, and through grace we come to recognize some of them. Our lives gradually begin to reflect more accurately who we really are, and we find our own meaning. We truly do experience God. These promises are not empty. They are full to overflowing.
The process is frightening, difficult, dangerous, painful, and consuming of both time and energy. It is also comforting, transforming, clarifying, deeply satisfying, and is the source of inner peace.
From an essay by Lois Ann Peckham, quoted in Gifts from Within: Women’s Meditations for Lent by the Women of Brigid’s Place. Copyright © 2002. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com