Friday, September 29, 2006

Friday, September 29, 2006

Today’s reading

Philippians 1:29-30

“For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well--since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have” (Phil.1:29-30).

Prayer

My Wounded Friend, thank you. For I am among those victories you have won in bitter woundedness. I am yours, and never do I want to be otherwise. Take and receive my heart’s desire as my morning praise to you. Your battered body greets me daily from the crucifix, my shoes echoing across the shale as they anxiously bear me to the day’s duties. You hang there, silent and dying, saying not a word yet speech pours forth day and night into the chapel’s dimness, and my heart hears.

“Fully given,” you whisper in the darkness. “Fully given.” There is no part of you unsurrendered to the blessed and holy dream of the One you call Father, and others call Mother, and I call Loving Mystery for that is what you are to me. But no name will do. They all collapse in abject defeat beneath the weight of the wonder you are. And I stand amazed at the fullness of your heart, surrendered to one holy purpose.

For your name is Fully Given. You are the face of the Eternal Wonder whose love is fully given to gathering up all the broken fragments of creation--and me--so that nothing is lost, so all that is finds its final home and fulfillment in your love, a love constantly poured into this dark chapel and every shadowed corner of creation.

And I hear you in the darkness: “Give all to me, and you will know the life of the One who is Life. Give all to me, and you will know my joy. Give all to me, and you will know what only saints can know: there is a love worth suffering for.” My Wounded Friend, this day, may I be as fully given as you. Amen.

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