Detours

I have always loved maps. I remember going through magazines  with my oldest brother, the two of us clipping coupons for information from all over the world for travel information, especially for maps. Before the days of mobile phones with maps on them, I always had a map open on my lap when I rode in the passenger seat. I loved seeing where we were, what was coming up, what was nearby, how other places I knew related to one another, and discovering new places and things.

I have had maps in every place I have served. They're not for only finding my way; I find my way in relation to other points on the map.

So when my extended self-guided daily retreat time, The Map you Make Yourself, a pilgrimage inward, addressed detours, I was intrigued. I was especially intrigued by the question asking what maps do I live by.

There are limits to self-revelation. I won't share here what I discovered about myself. I will, however, share the blessing Jan L. Richardson wrote, and how I choose to read it.

God beyond borders,
may I wander
with wanting enough
to unlearn my path,
with wonder enough
to receive the secrets of each place,
with wisdom enough
to allow them to whisper me
home a different way.
(Jan L. Richardson)

I first read is as "...may I wander with wanting enough...." as in "enough wanting" - "...to unlearn my path, with wonder enough [ie enough wonder]...with wisdom enough [enough wisdom]..."

The second time I read it, it came out this way:

"...may I wander with wanting [ , ] enough to unlearn my path,
with wonder [ , ] enough to receive the secrets of each place,
with wisdom [ , ] enough to allow them to whisper me home a different way."

That is, may I wander with wanting, with wonder, and with wisdom, long enough and fully enough to unlearn, receive, and allow.

It is a fine distinction.

Imagine the map by which you live - your internal rules, your internal habits, routines, self-expectations, expectations of others, et cetera. What would a detour from all that - or even one part of it only - look like? Feel like? Would it be disorienting, or freeing, or both, or something else?

The writer of a series of books I've worked in the past suggests that creativity can be unlocked when you choose a route to someplace familiar, a route you know like the back of your hand, a route you always, always take the same, when you choose to take a different route, one you have never taken, one you do not know for certain. No GPS or maps. Mi esposo and I call it "getting lost", "going on an adventure".

Now I'm trying it on internally. It's strange. It's strange when I find myself not fretting over an outcome. My internal map includes a route called fretting. I choose a detour and suddenly, I found myself, without thinking about it, trying it on. I shall try it again.

Traveling inward

I'm at the end of the first half of Jan L. Richardson's self-directed retreat for a women's Christmas, The Map You Make Yourself - "Saint Catherine's Labyrinth."

At the end of the meditation, Jan asks, "When have words taken you on a journey - not into a physical space but into your own soul? What did you find there?"


O God, you are my God; eagerly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you,
as in a barren and dry land where there is no water.

Therefore I have gazed upon you in your holy place,
that I might behold your power and your glory...

My soul clings to you;
your right hand holds me fast
(Psalm 63:1-2, 8)

One thing have I asked of Adonai;
one thing I seek;
that I may dwell in the house of Adonai all the days of my life;

To behold the fair beauty of Adonai
and to seek him in his temple...

You speak in my heart and say, "Seek my face,"
Your face, Adonai, will I seek.
(Psalm 27:5-6, 11)


I found in those words a desire to see the face of God, a desire to track God down, to find God in God's lair, even, and, even, drag God out by the throat and shake God, and ask, "What do you think you're doing down here? Don't you know these are people's lives you're playing with?!"

And, sometimes, the desire just to gaze on God's face. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Paradoxically, Richardson ends the meditation with this blessing:
"May you sink
the roots of your soul
deep and deeper still
into the love of God,
who encompasses and encircles you
without beginning, without end."



And so, God, I seek your face.
I have questions.
The answer to Job is no answer at all.
Why do you hide?
How do you hide,
encompassing me,
circling me,
right here before me,
behind me,
above, beneath,
to the side?
Ah, but then, every once in awhile,
there is the hawk.
(  (c)  Lois Keen, January 14, 2013)

I have found there, more. I have found that I see things others do not see, and where others do see, I see differently. I see connections between disparate things, thoughts, writings. I see poetry beyond words. I see words beyond sight or thought. And people have trouble understanding what I say.

The Door

This morning I was reminded that the symbol of St. Anne is the door,
she who was the door
through whom Our Lady Mother Mary
was born

Yesterday I asked, piteously, how a person becomes a professional retreat leader,
like Jan L. Richardson. "By writing a book" was the answer. "By being an artist, a poet - look at her work!"

Today I have been offered an opportunity to lead a vestry retreat.

The poem/prayer for this step on my pilgrimage inward, page 8 in Jan L. Richardson's self-guided retreat for a Women's Christmas, warns that it is probably a good thing we cannot see the entire road ahead in this pilgrimage, for we might not make the journey at all. And that there is a gift each of us has that only we can bring, and there will be a place to which to bring that gift.

So many doors
and I don't know the names of the half of them
I don't have the keys to them all
and some of the keys I have
are rusted
and some of the locks
are rusted
and the only way to tell
is to try them
St. Anne, pray for me
St. Anne, pray with me
St. Anne, pray in me

I am tempted to take all the piles and piles of keys that have accumulated in the church and toss out every last one of them.

Women's Christmas Retreat: The Map You Make Yourself

I have discovered the tradition, mostly Irish, of Women's Christmas: Epiphany being the time when women took the day off from making everyone happy and caring for everything.

Here is a link to a Jan L. Richardson site that just might be helpful. I posted this link on my primary blog, Ramblings With Lois, but I will speak more fully and regularly about this Women's Christmas on this blog.

I wrote on Ramblings:

"As a clergy woman, I am recognizing a tiredness normal to this time of year. In a year when Lent will begin so soon after Christmas and Epiphany - Ash Wednesday, February 13 - I pledge to myself to take these few weeks in between to take that pilgrimage within, to sort through where I want to be and go, where I might go, who I might be, and just to rest. To stop, and rest. And maybe stand outside or walk about once in awhile for not purpose at all.

"I hope you enjoy Jan. I have read her book Night Visions every day from the Monday before Christmas through the week after Epiphany for, oh, I guess 14 or 15 years now. It inspired me to, every year, to a piece of art and/or write each day as part of my daily devotions during that time of year. 

"One place in the Women's Christmas pilgrimage I want to go is to extend that spiritual practice to all the year round. Pray for me, if you will."

Well, I have begun this self-retreat and Oh cripes, she starts right out, doesn't she!?! and asks the questions, "Where do you want to go? What would it take?" In other words, what's stopping you?

Can't I work up to that? Do I have to dive right in? Well, after all, this is a map I am to make for myself. It might be nice to have some ideas where I might go. But, oh, this is a journey inward. The outward is merely the starting place. So yes, I get to work up to it.

So, to begin: The first thing that comes to mind is money. The second is time but money is the real thing stopping me. What would it take to make this happen? And where do I want to go? Almost anyplace in England, and to Lister in Norway. To take that pilgrimage on the milk boat to the land of my forebears. My mother's forebears.

Where do I want to inward? I will let that unfold.

Now, to rest a bit. Time for a cuppa. Harney's Earl Grey with silvertips - mmmmmm.

The Epiphany: a visual meditation