I’ve been away for a while. From writing, that is.
Even though my heart’s been brimming with all I want to say. And I find myself at yet another crossroad. A crossroad where I’m being asked to surrender it all.
I find this to be a hard post to write. Because how do you express the inexpressible?
Maybe an image will help.
The other day, Emma, the director of the orphanage where I volunteered in Cochabamba, emailed a couple of photos of the babies I’d cared for. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the children while working there, so this was the first time I’d seen their precious faces since I’ve been back home.
I cried when I saw them.
Especially little Teresa. She was my favorite. But I loved them all. And not only for the short time I was with them. I still carry them in my heart. I suspect I always will.
It’s easy to love babies, isn’t it? Even when they’re crying inconsolably. I mean, for the most part. We just love them. Inexplicably. Even though they’re totally useless. They can’t do a darn thing for themselves. Completely dependent. Open and waiting. Helpless and vulnerable. They’re surrendered to us. And yet we love them even more.
Lately the image of those babies has been really speaking to me.
It’s a metaphor. My relationship with those babies. An image of something much deeper. A metaphor for my relationship with a God who is always loving me. A God who loves me most especially in my helpless, vulnerable, open, and completely surrendered place. And this love has been overwhelming and powerful and hard to fully take in.
And also a bit scary.
Because if I surrender completely, let go of all my roles and my self-images, my thoughts and ideas about who I am or who I should be, then what? Then who will I be?
It’s a place of naked vulnerability. Of meekness and humility.
And the “little me” wonders, Do you really want to go there?
All alone in my precious prayer time, when I go down into that deepest, most silent place within me, I know that the answer to that question is yes.
I know I am here to surrender to love.
And I know it’s OK that I can’t get there on my own.
As Richard Rohr says, “Authentic prayer is always a journey into love.”
I want to take that journey. Again and again and again.