LineaLanoie's Weblog

In the fourth and final session of lectio and contemplative prayer we read from Psalm 42.

As a deer longs for flowing streams
       so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
       for the living God.
When shall I come and behold the face of God?

Honestly, this is one of my favorite Psalms.  In the psalmist’s words, I hear the longing that comes from the heart of his being. He wants to see God, to be close, and it is like that need for a drink that drives a thirsty animal to seek water.

As we read the passage the phrase “behold the face of God” stuck in my thoughts.

The weekend had been a journey of sorts for me; from Jesus telling me I needed to rest and drink from his life-giving sap as a living branch, through God bringing me to a place of physical and spiritual release as he showed me what coming home to him was like, to this last session where he reminds me that I will behold his face if I follow my thirst till I find the living water he promises. 

This thirst to “behold the face of God” comes to the psalmist in a time when his own troubles cause him to repeat the question that people around him are asking: “Where is your God?”  I think that the troubles in my own life are also part of the tools God is using to remind me to search again for his face.  Dryness causes me to seek water to slake my thirst.  And that is just what Jesus wants to do for me.

This was my first experience attending a guided retreat.  I have gone off by myself before.  That was good but there was something special about this weekend.  Maybe it had something to do with the total lack of responsibility, even down to not having to decide what to meditate on or read. That may have given me more freedom to be led or perhaps to concentrate on hearing God.  Whatever it was, I plan to make this type of retreat part of my experience at least once a year.

The second session of lectio divina was from Mark 8: 22-26.  In this passage, the villagers “begged” Jesus to touch and heal their friend. 

It seemed to me that this fellow had good friends.  Perhaps they saw his potential, had grown up with him and had learned to love and care for him.  They knew and understood his need to be whole.  When Jesus came to their town, they knew that Jesus could heal their friend if he chose to do it.  They were not above begging – this blind guy was their friend. 

To me this passage spoke about the importance of friends in being introduced to Jesus – loving another person enough to bring them along to Jesus and beg Jesus for help on their behalf.

The other thing that struck me in this passage was that the return of this guy’s vision took some unusual action.  First of all, putting spit in a man’s eyes seems strange.  I wonder if he heard Jesus spit onto his hands and wonder what was going to happen.  There are a lot of things that may have been going on in this scene that we aren’t informed of.  And the man’s sight wasn’t restored perfectly right off the bat.  He had to look intently before his sight became clear.  I wonder if this is a bit of an allegory of how our faith develops – at first a bit fuzzy; becoming clearer as we look intently and see Jesus more and more clearly. 

By the time I was in the third session of the retreat, I was beginning to fall apart emotionally.  This was so unlike me.  I don’t go around weeping even for most sad stuff.  We came together to share from the second and third session of lectio and I could not. 

For the third session our passage was from John 15:4, from The Message this time.  “Make your home in me just as I do in you.”

It was as if I could not hear God.  I felt confused and lost and my emotions just seemed to take over.  I felt like I didn’t know what it meant to be at home; to make my home in God.  I think I felt lonely and lost.

Later on that evening, I went back to the room where the labyrinth was set up.

Walking the labyrinth was a new experience for me.  The first couple of times when I walked it, it was ok but nothing exceptional.  I’m not sure what I was expecting.  Both times before this evening, I had walked to the centre and it seemed as if God had met me there most as I sat and prayed at the centre – just that as I prayed, the issue I was praying about seemed to sort of resolve as I sat there and I left with a lot more lightness. 

This evening, I was dealing with a lot of turmoil inside.  I didn’t even really know what it was all about but I knew I wanted to be close to God, so I went to spend some time with him. 

As I walked, I asked him, “What does this mean for me – to be at home in you as you are in me?”  It dawned on me that I had not grown up in one single home all my life.  So a physical home for me did not mean a single place that I never moved from.  As I walked toward the centre, I didn’t seem to get any closer to understanding.  At the centre, I lay down and listened for a long time.  I was crying a bit, I felt so lost not knowing why all these emotions, feeling a bit like I was a long way from home but searching for it, unable to hear exactly what God was trying to say to me. 

Then as I lay there, Jesus reminded me of Leo.  He reminded me of how we are at home in each other.  How we are most “at home” when we are with each other – just around each other, not necessarily doing anything or even talking to each other.  It came to my mind that this is the kind of  “at home” he wants me to experience with him.  He wants me to be so comfortable in his presence that without even saying anything I will know that he is there and will be truly at home.  He reminded me that I need to stay closely connected to him or I will feel lost and away from home. 

I think that part of what I was feeling was also fear.  The pressure on me emotionally over the past couple of months has been heavy both at work and at home.  I needed some emotional healing and rest and I think Jesus was providing for me just the kind of rest I needed, even to letting some of my emotional hurts work themselves out.

My bags are packed.  I’m ready to go.

Centrepoint – a prayer retreat.  This has been one of those things I have wanted to do for a couple of years.  Last year I don’t remember hearing about it.  This year I hear there will be very few of us.  Maybe it needs more advertising.  Maybe we as a church denomination in Canada need to place more importance on prayer.  Maybe it needs to be done more at the local level so there is less travel involved.  I guess I am surprised that it was not a filled up event.  Maybe I have just been hungry for this sort of opportunity for long enough that when I am offered a weekend of sitting at God’s feet, everything else seemed to need to be put aside to make it happen.

And on top of looking forward to spending some quality and quantity time with God is topped off with getting to travel all day with a friend, going to a place where I will revisit some other good friends and meet new ones, and then to visit one of those famous Krispy Kreme doughnut shrines that our Albertan friends imported from their friends to the south.

Ah what a weekend this will be!

I doubt I will blog much – talk to you next week.