(Editor’s Note: There is a glitch with the website and the “Featured Image” is duplicated in miniature at the top of the post. We are working to fix this. Thanks for your patience.)
Next In-person walk: Saturday, December 14, 9 a.m. – 10 a.m.
Covenant Presbyterian Church back parking, 2222 at Mo-Pac, Austin
Next Zoom discussion: December 14, 2024 10:30 AM Central Time (til 11:30)
Walk In: Losing our Lives by Letting Go of Separateness
“You may think yourself lazy, or flawed. Yet your body is made of almost exactly the same elements as the stars. Your bone composition matches the coral in the seas and you, my friend, are ruled by the moon and the sun.
Whether you like it or not. So no, you are not lazy, Nature is simply pulling you to slow, like the life, flora and fauna around you. It is not your moment to rise. It is winter, you are wintering. And you are right on time.” (By Donna Ashworth)
Questions:
In general, our American culture offers us both hyper-individualism and an extractive relationship with creation. Yet the facts of nature tell a different story: connection and mutual benefit. For instance, time in the forest makes us healthier in many ways. Our bodies are made up of the same elements as the stars. As you walk, imagine leaving behind a sense of disconnection from the ecosystem in which you live. What feelings or new insights arise? How might you walk differently? What impact is connection to creation having on you currently? What practices help you recognize this deep reality?
Center: Meeting the Holy One in the Gift of Light Within
As darkness descends
you hold your candle,
your frail light,
but it is not little.
It is the flame of “Let there be light,”
the big bang of hope.
Your light orbits through the darkness
with all the other stars
in a great galaxy of compassion.
You say your quiet prayer,
a few words uttered on the wind,
but they are not small,
these words spun of a thread of love,
a hardy strand that runs from heart to heart
in a massive web of mercy.
You offer up your heart
but it is not your heart,
it is God’s, beating in you,
it is God’s light shining in you,
God’s hope echoing through you,
God’s prayer sustaining the world.
Keep vigil with courage and confidence,
for God keeps vigil in you.
In us, in the hopeful and the helpless,
in the traumatized and terrorized,
in all of life
God keeps vigil.
– Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “Unfolding Light”
Questions:
In what ways do you make your light small? How might the stars help you embrace a different vision? What do the night stars say to you about the nature and presence of God? What misunderstandings about God do they “refute?”
Walk Out: Saving Our Lives by Holding the World Together Beneath the Stars
This is the true pilgrim.
This is the true artist.
He who stands upon the threshold with one hand to the heavens
and the other to the earth.
To not run from
the dirt of the earth
into the purity of the heavens
but to hold the two together.
The dweller, who holds worlds together beneath these stars. She holds worlds together beneath these stars.
We hold worlds together
beneath these stars.
As we dwell
in rhythms of possibility.
We are artists
and we are pilgrims.
We are actors
and we are dancers.
We are poets
and we are prophets.
We are singers
and we are painters.
We are lovers
And creators
And there is hope
in our eye.
– Joel McKerrow “Of the Threshold”
Questions:
In what ways are you the pilgrim, artist , or dweller who holds heaven and earth together? Are there ways in which you refuse to abide in the reality of both? What practices help you live “beneath the stars?”