By Janet Davis
Next In-person walk: Saturday, May 10, 9-10 a.m,
Covenant Presbyterian Church back parking lot, 2222 at Mo-Pac, Austin
Next Zoom discussion: Saturday, May 10, 2025, 10:30 a.m. Central Time (US and Canada)
Walk In: Losing Our Lives by Letting Go of Cherished Customs and Old Stories
Cosmic change is not cosmetic change. It is radical, meaning ‘to the root,’ and it will mean the upheaval of our cherished customs and the disposal of stories that have provided the basic framework for our lives. We must not underestimate the enormity of what is being asked of us, even as we celebrate with joy the new and salvific. In its initial moments resurrection is indistinguishable from death. At first we are unable to see the great turning that has taken place. All that has been comfortable, all that has held us in place is gone, and there is nothing recognizable to stand on. Everything on which we have planted our feet is swept away.
Questions:
What cherished customs seem ripe for release?
What stories that have provided a framework for your life need to be disposed?
What feels like death this easter but may, in fact, hold the seeds of resurrection?
Center: Meeting the Holy One in Newness
Comfortable and well-worn are my daily paths
whose edges have grown gray
with constant use.
My daily speech is a collection of old words
worn down at the heels
by repeated use.
My language and deeds, addicted to habit,
prefer the taste of old wine,
the feel of weathered skin.
Come and awaken me, Spirit of the new.
Come and refresh me, Creator of green life.
Come and inspire me, Risen Son,
you who make all things new:
I am too young to be dead,
to be stagnant in spirit.
High are the walls that guard the old,
the tried and secure ways of yesterday
that protect me from the dreaded plague,
the feared heresy of change.
For all change is a danger to the trusted order,
the threadbare traditions that are maintained
by the narrow ruts of rituals.
Yet how can an everlastingly new covenant
retain its freshness and vitality
without injections of the new,
the daring, the untried?
Come, O you who are ever-new,
wrap my heart in new skin,
ever flexible to be reformed by your Spirit.
Set my feet to fresh paths this day:
inspire me to speak original and life-giving words
and to creatively give shape to the new.
Come and teach me how to dance with delight
whenever you send a new melody my way.
Ed Hays, from Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim
Questions
As you meet the Spirit of the NEW, what is awakening inside of you?
What new invitations, perspectives, insights, or opportunities are you finding refreshing or inspiring?
What in your life feels fresh and flexible, daring and untried like new wine skins?
Where are you being nudged toward creativity in large or small ways?
What choices can you make to tend those spaces?
Walk Out: Saving Our Lives by Welcoming Questions Beyond Our Own
A Gift
Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.
Denise Levertov
Sounds of the Well
Questions
What questions do you find yourself holding currently be they yours or those of others?
Do you tend to be gentle with questions or demanding of answers?
What might it feel like to consider that the question might actually BE the answer?
