On Traveling, Friendship, and Prayer

Between class sessions this summer, I've been doing a lot of visiting of friends, especially of friends I haven't seen in a year or more.  While I have been blessed this year with many truly delightful new friends, there remains something golden about old friends who have known you for years and yet keep you around.  Too, while I've long been perfectly comfortable keeping touch via the phone and internet, it is always upon seeing people that I am reminded how much of their uniqueness is embodied in a way that simply cannot be communicated over great distances.  In these times, I take a deep joy in simply being with my loved ones, in resting in their presence.  Sure, it's great fun to go places and do things, to see their various cities and the places important to their lives, but doing is always, always secondary to being.  It is because of being with them that I return from a visit rejuvenated.

One of my classmates finds it consistently shocking that I am taking a silent retreat next week.  She just cannot fathom an entire week of Claire not talking (Admittedly, this is something that's not been done before)!  I laugh when she points this out, and smile quietly.  The truth is that I am deeply delighted to have the opportunity to simply rest in the presence of my Lord and my God, Who knows me most thoroughly and has since before I was born.

Too, as I rest in His Heart, He will fill mine, in which place each of you has an abode.  I pray that my week of rest with Him might spill over into each of your lives, and bring with it that peace which surpasses all understanding.

Jesus, meek and humble of Heart, make our hearts like unto Thine.