rest

That's probably the piece of advice I've gotten most lately:

Rest. Get all the rest you can right now.

I've always had a hard time slowing down. I've always been one to push through the tired, to get my list of tasks completed. To greater or lesser degrees, I've always thought that I was valuable to the same degree to which I could get things done, cross them off my list, and prove myself. A Christian most of my life, I've long understood this is not really true, but I lived as if it were. It has always felt true. I've always struggled with this.

But the sanctity of the life growing inside me is far from being lost on me. I'm humbled and in awe that God is inviting me to participate in this miracle. I pray for the little bean several times a day, I make the sign of the cross over my belly, I ask Jesus and Mary to protect this little life.

It was so fitting with the readings at Mass this past weekend, the first reading being from the first chapter of Jeremiah: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you ... (Jeremiah 1:5) and we later sung a hymn based on Psalm 139: You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb (v. 14).

I felt tears prick my eyes. God knows far better than I do just how precious this little one is.

He loves and knits and protects and knows. While the pace of my life slows and come to stillness at the end of the day, He is watchful and vigilant and busy, ever standing guard over us. I realized this morning that more than a physical need, rest is a part of my vocation right now, needed to nurture myself and this little bean.

And somehow, knowing that is making it easier for me to rest.

personal penitence

This poem/prayer has grown out of a personal confession that has been evolving over the last several days. My heart has been heavy with many cares and frustrations which seemed to have clogged the communication lines between earth and Heaven, at least for me. For some time, it's been difficult for me to pray at all. And now in the wake of what has transpired in Haiti (in which unanticipated demands were placed on all our hearts), it seems fitting to share it now.

The form is loosely based on one of the forms of the Penitential Rite, which takes place at the beginning of the Catholic Mass. I'm becoming increasingly thankful for the liturgy, which gives me fitting words when I have none of my own.

I am lean on faith
and heavy with excuse.

Lord, have mercy.

I feel the pull and the tug
of gravity
and of anxiety.

Christ, have mercy.

My belly and my heart
are filled with sighs,
the exhalations of unmet hopes
and of many disappointments.

Lord, have mercy.

I have only enough care
to know I don't care enough.

Christ, have mercy.

My heels are dry and cracked,
my fingers bleeding.

Lord, have mercy.

Pierce my heart
with the nails of the cross,
with the thorns of your crown.

Christ, have mercy.

Let the hot blood course over
these frozen stones
and render them supple flesh.

Lord, have mercy.

Please hear my refrain,
carried on the breaths of the saints
and on angel wings.

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

photo by kirsten.michelle
copyright 2009