Resting up high like this clears my vision

You are the LORD; do not withhold your compassion from me; let Your love and Your faithfulness keep me safe for ever,

Open, Lord, my eyes that I may see. Open, Lord, my ears that I may hear. Open, Lord, my heart and my mind that I may understand. So shall I turn to You and be healed.

So, one never knows who seeing eyes may notice. I pretty much thought this around-the-golf-course stroll was going to be about me snuggling in closer to the heartbeat of Jesus, the Rabbi. But it wasn’t. Well, kind of not.

The essence of sin lies in the enormity of our self-centeredness. –Brennan Manning

And as I wandered through the beauty of quaking sun-filled leaves and a lazy hawk circling over million-dollar mansions, what I heard was cry for compassion. A cry of brokenness from somewhere close, but not so close. Somewhere over there.

And Chris our pastor is doing a series on why we belong to Church. But he has not even begun to touch on the hands and feet of it all. The walking where Jesus walked among the broken and aching and the crying. And the reaching out and touching in His name.

Because one of the lessons I learned on El Camino was in reaching out and healing, I was healed. And I didn’t even notice the exact moment when the riveting pain was lifted because my eyes were off of me and looking at His children. And my ears were attune to His sweet voice. And what I do understand is that it is pretty simple: Follow Me. 

Turn and follow me, and you will be healed.

And suddenly, the repeating refrain from last night’s vespers are clear, when earlier I pretty much just momentarily puzzled and pushed it aside: Let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before You, and by your great might spare those who are condemned to die.

May I draw close to the prisoners’ sighs in Your name. And by Your great might may they be spared and enter into Your compassionate love and faithfulness.

Speak Lord, for Your servant is listening.

Free, free indeed.

…one day you realized that what you wanted
had already happened, and long ago and in the dwelling place
in which you lived before you began,
and that every step along the way, you had carried
the heart and the mind and the promise,
that first set you off and then drew you on, and that
you were more marvelous in your simple wish to find a way
than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach...

Excerpt from ‘Santiago’
From Pilgrim: Poems by David Whyte