A small bottle of water from Lourdes, a gift from Jonathan
(Semester 1, Week 9, Thursday)
It has been six weeks since I took off on a path to myself. People have joined the path and branched off since then, and now is a time when I see no one on the path. I am alone again. A Greek dance plays on my phone, in a language that the world has forgotten, a tongue that no one understands. In my mind I dance again, lonesome as a hermit in the wastes, trotting, toeing, the fine line between rapture and insanity.
The night prayer is written on my wall, serving as a rough template for my prayers for each night. It is a short one, each line written down after a meditative session at a retreat or a cell group meeting:
Lord, take me, break me, feed me to the crowds
Put me in the path of all in need
Let me be there, let me bear everything gracefully
I must decrease; You must increase
It's time to be serious about being fed to the crowds now.
Work has limited my contact with large groups, thinning down my social contact to one person at a time, sometimes even less. Old graduate friends become less responsive over messaging services. "Put me in the path in need" seemed to have put less people on my path, not more.
"Let me be there, let me bear everything gracefully." Maybe I haven't been there, maybe I haven't borne anything as gracefully as I imagine I should.
"I must decrease; You must increase."
So it's not about me. If only it was all not about myself!
All these will take time to sink in.
Tomorrow morning, hopefully, I will wake up as usual. My morning prayer is written on the same wall, and consists of a single pious ejaculation:
Lord, I am overjoyed to find myself still breathing. Take my day: it is yours!
Some days I strike out "overjoyed" mentally while making this prayer. Some days are just like that.
Time to sleep.
[Bedtime reading: Evangelii Gaudium]
