Grey clouds hover; shield the sun’s wake up call.  Water drips like a cranky faucet on the window ledge outside.  Droplets let go from eaves into palms of leafy-cupped hands.  I stretch horizontal under sheets; take freedom while H sleeps in Chicago.

It’s the first Monday of summer’s freedom and she puts her finger over her lips, hushes to avoid awakening the schedule.

My first-born drifts from her bed to mine, curls up beside me propped up pillowed with the computer on my lap. Two minutes later, sleep lulls her back and the rhythm of deep breathing cracks stillness open.  My fingers freeze in this moment, to honor His presence pushing time aside like clearing the kitchen counter.

We enter the room of Ordinary Time on the liturgical calendar, through the closet among sleeves and tired shoes to find the mystery in a long forgotten box on the top shelf beside the purses.  This season between Pentecost Sunday and the first Sunday of Advent is the longest season of the year.

The season without balloons and banquet tables confetti strewn. Ordinary Time is the finger paint artwork hanging on refrigerator doors so long you barely notice it anymore.

How do you search for the mystery of Christ beyond his birth and resurrection? Where do you find it?

May I suggest lectio divina, the ancient practice of prayerful meditation of the scriptures or lectio sacra (holy reading)? An opportunity for the Holy Spirit to awaken truth cloaked in parable, fiction and poetry  . . . . on the beach, your back porch, in seat 14D on Delta or the passenger seat of your mini van.

Sarah Arthur, author of At the Still Point, describes it this way:

“Curled up with a good story, we have encountered the memorable character, the articulate phrase, the evocative image, the small suggestion, the smuggled truth, the shattering epiphany, which changed us, and we weren’t even looking to be changed. It enriched our lives, and we didn’t even know our own poverty. We were not the same people afterward.”

As the sun peeks her golden eyes through shutters, I read scriptures, a blog post, an email from a friend that speaks words of encouragement as if she just read my mind, heard my prayer in a can stringed thousands of miles. And  God whispers, “You just opened the mystery, I’m right here.”

I’m pleased to be giving away two copies of Sarah Arthur’s wonderful book At the Still Point: A Literary Guide to Prayer in Ordinary Time.  “A journey of the imagination guided by poets and authors, both classic and contemporary, who have known the things of God but speak in metaphor.”

I originally found this beauty on Ann Voskamp’s reading list last fall. Let’s enjoy together, shall we?

Just leave a comment in this post on the blog, I’ll add your name in the drawing on Sunday, and two people will recieve a copy of the book in the mail.

Linking with Imperfect Prose, God Bumps, WWLW, Thought Provoking Thursday, Life in Bloom, One Beautiful Thing.

 

My kids pulled Leigh Kramer of HopefulLeigh and Jennifer Johnson Camp of You Are My Girls out of the bowl for the giveaway. Congrats ladies!