I went to the midweek contemplative service at Saint Andrew’s United Church of Canada last night. One of the many reasons I love going to this is the quiet opening I can feel inside of me…the combination of a grounding and a freeing that has me pick up a pen and paper with a certain reverence.

I tend to arrive about a half an hour early to settle in by writing lines that make room within me for what is to come. Yesterday’s entry contains this:

…and realize that I do not know of any other way to relate to God except through the experience, the glimpse of understanding that utter saturation of is-ness, of being. To stare at a dahlia and be captivated by the math, the design, the colours, etc…and see in the parts And the totality, the grace, beauty, and sheer revelation of God…Yes! The SHEER revelation of God…translucent…evident…It feels like this is all a part of the truth of not being able to separate myself (or anything/one else) from God. This moment, these moments, they are the evidence/experience of the always and everywhere…and not only these moments but in the aching times too…yes, then too…all revelation, everywhere and always…

And then came the service in which Susan used the following quotation from theologian Frederick Buechner. It was indeed a stellar half an hour…and it lives within me still.

The fearsome blessing of that hard time continues to work itself out in my life in the same way we’re told the universe is still hurtling through outer space under the impact of the great cosmic explosion…. I think grace sometimes explodes into our lives like that-sending our pain, terror, astonishment hurtling through inner space until by grace they become Orion, Cassiopeia, Polaris to give us our bearings, to bring us into something like full being at last. ——Frederick Buechner—

Orion, Cassiopeia, Polaris

Since I was a child,
I thought it might,
just might be possible
to see inside a stone,
if I could let go enough.
I had a sense even then
that there were worlds within
the world I experienced.
I still look at stones, dahlias, trees,
the neighbour’s dog, the neighbour.
and marvel at all that is revealed
of the galaxies within, though now
I don’t have to try so hard to let go.
Because I know of the constellations
grace has set in my own inner skies;
How she has turned the carbon of
pain, fear, and wonder into
compass points of light.
I know too that I am not alone
in time and space, in marveling
at the great becoming that asks us
all home again into One, into whole,
into fullness of being.

Kimberly M. King