I may already be back at home, but here are two last shorts about Gethsemani, my friends.

I have noticed when I do the things I think I “should” do but do not really want to do, I feel stifled; I want to climb out of my skin.
I sit, squirmy, through Christmas Eve mass, having forgotten everyone else here is Catholic and these things mean more to them than to me. I count down to when they will go forward for the Eucharist and I will leave to go have a snack, to go outside in my blanket and look at the moon. Finally. When will I learn to listen to myself and stop obeying all the things that I think “should” be done and rather listen to the One deep inside me who knows what I need? When will I stop allowing guilt to run my life?
I already am on this path.
I go on a Christmas hike instead of a church service, and it is the best Christmas morning I could give myself.

 

I finally sat down and meditated today. I did not fall asleep once. I sat with the sense of Self inside me that I’m trying to learn to listen to. Maybe it was because I was actually alert. Maybe because I had read enough Thomas Merton to get in the contemplative mood. Maybe because I ran out of running away.

 This little house is named Enoch’s Stone House. It’s a little meditation shack. Inside are cobwebs, a pitcher of water, a cross and rosary, a beautiful psalm book, and notebooks where people write down their prayers.
I rarely write in such books, but today I decided that my words, too, were worth being heard.