Ignatian Retreat, Final Day

1/19/2011
6:43 AM

I am not ready to leave today, and I think I've touched on the reason why, at least part of it. Looking back, it feels as though my time here has spanned but half a breath, and only the inhalation. You have inspired in the root meaning of the word. That is the joy and the fear of it, though. You love me enough to breathe deeply into me, but will I simply hold my breath rather than exhale, killing the life-infusing power of Your breath and myself in the process? If only eight days could see me emerge from here with the cementing experience of eighty years. There wouldn't be much fun in that, though. Yet in the idea there is the recognition of the truth that what You have only begun here will take a life-filled life to enflesh, and there's always the possibility that I'll cower in the face of adversity's temptation. There's no doubt: I will; it is only 'we' who won't. The thing now is to not try and live everything at once; we are to start where You say to start, and to do so vigorously. But it is to be remembered that even a vigorous start must still begin with one step.


1/19/2011
8:21 AM
Walking with the Risen Jesus: John 17

To come back to John 17 is a wonderful way to conclude the retreat. It's as it should be. It's You praying protection over me as I leave, praying that I would come to know You as deeply as You and Abba know one another, fighting for me that that I would let You love me. All of this is for my sake, for the sake of everyone else, and for Your sake. We're all winners when I come to You. And this is eternal life! It is no distant future. It is here to be entered into now and every now always, becaus eternal life is that I "may know [Abba], the only true God, and You Jesus, the one he has sent." (John 17:3) The simplicity and yet the utterly incomprehensible vastness of that, and right here for the living. Thank You with all of me, and I will thank You with all of me. I know Your protective and encompassing love is all around, in, and through me as I go today. Continue to increase my awareness of Your everywhere-ness, and give me the grace to ever continue opening to Your love. In Your name, Abba-Brother-Friend, Amen.