#peace
Peace. Last Easter I spent the afternoon at my church, The Well, lost in a series of contemplative exercises designed by their urban monastic group. There was a labyrinth, a beautiful micro garden with a tomb, and a station for creating something symbolic of a gift, from God, for us to take with us.
I used to write a lot of poetry, but rather curiously when I started my training as a therapist, my urge to write faded. I suspect it’s because working as a therapist, at least for me, is a real art form of scouring and making creative use of language for the perfect expression of inner experience.
But on several occasions now when I’ve made a personal retreat to be with God, my soul has responded with poetry.
This is what I wrote that day, from God to me, in the midst of my life-long inability to rest, find peace, and just be. I wrote it on the outside of the little gift bag I created for myself. This bag fell off my shelf twice last week, a year on, in the midst – yet again – of a lot of stress and my inability to rest and just be.
My Gift to You…
This is my gift to you, my love.
You don’t have to finish anything. Because It Is Finished.
You don’t have to save yourself,
Or anybody else.
Because you are all now saved In me.
There is no rush.
Because death has been defeated.
Let the angels roll back the rock
Behind which you think you are entombed,
To reveal only space.
Peace.
It is time to sit in the garden.
Not ashamed, or guilty, that you weren’t crucified.
Simply so grateful and entirely unable to repay.
What grace…
(C) Claire van den Bosch, 2016