God speaks to each of us as God makes us,

Then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

Go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like flame

And make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you:  beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

~Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours, I 59

Reflection

Give me your hand. Placing your hand in another’s requires trust. To connect, to let another lead, or to share the direction as a kind of meandering, this is to trust; no requirement necessary, go beyond labels:  no role, title, ownership…just your hand.

Trust does require something though. It requires vulnerability. This giving of your hand, this is the real you, the one God created you to be, born into a miraculous and unique being. This is your true self and it may make you feel “unmasked”. What does being seen this way evoke in you? A sense of freedom? Perhaps hesitancy? Awkwardness? Completeness?

It is your hand, real and vulnerable, that God calls, open and waiting for unification: Your true self with God.

In this month’s Retreat, Reflect, Renew reflection, Christine shared Thomas Merton’s words: 

If I find Him I will find myself, and if I find my true self I will find Him.

This is what I know as the HOLY, the presence of God. When you find that what is Holy, you find yourself; if you find your true and unmasked self, you find what is Holy.

For me this sometimes looks like:  new life, literally like when I watch All Creatures Great & Small and there is a calf being born, wet and steaming in the stable; many experience the holy in a newborn baby, and even experiences of death, with another leaving this world to meet God, that is their experience with the Holy; bulbs forcing through the soil, springing to life; the colors of a sunset; the sound of water flowing in a creek.

How do you meet and/or experience the Holy?