The Practice of the Presence of People: Day 11

These last three days, I have been listening to their stories down the four steps from the sidewalk into our Prayer Clinic.

Beautiful stories of the treachery of growing up on planet earth.

It has been a privilege to hear the heartbreak and the loss and we wept with the disk heater blowing fullblast on our feet, shawls on our shoulders, kleenex boxes on our laps.

Because this world is not as it was supposed to be.

But I get to be witness as bandages are unwrapped and wounds are exposed in safety to the Light.

I adore them already, all these women who will begin Journey, our 16 week curriculum toward Inner Healing.  Tomorrow we will start at the beginning, Week 1 and I will try to find a moment to sit back and feast and look in awe at the image of God gathered, marred but stunningly beautiful.

And this will be my prayer (from the Celtic Daily Prayer, St. Caedmon’s Day):

Teach me to hear that story/ through each person / to cradle a sense of wonder / in their life / to honour the hard-earned wisdom / of their sufferings/ to waken their joy / that the King of all kings / stoops down / to wash their feet,/ and looking up/ into their face / says, / “I know – I understand.”