Taking a new road
July 27, 2012
Beryl’s Summer 2012 Newsletter If you have trouble viewing this newsletter, click this link to access online “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.” --Thomas Merton, monk, mystic, author, from Thoughts in Solitude This newsletter is overdue, but I have thought of you often since I last wrote and given thanks for having you as such faithful readers. I hope your lives are moving smoothly and if not, that you’ve uncovered blessings tucked within even the most painful circumstances. When the above prayer appeared on my computer screen – Day 6 of an e-course on The Spirituality of Thomas Merton offered by Spirituality & Practice . -- it spoke to me in a special way. This spring, my life took a sudden turn and I embarked on a new journey on a dark road . . . a moment of carelessness that resulted in a fractured sacrum. Until then I not realized how physical pain would consume me, taking from me even the desire to connect and create. Unable to help others, to achieve, I was forced to abandon myself to dependence on God and on others. In the beginning, I hated this dependency. I wanted to take back control of my life. Only gradually did I recognize the gift to be found in helplessness and in the glacial creep of time. I realized that time plus immobility [plus a great deck] offered the perfect place from which to observe Lake Superior and the burgeoning spring erupting around me. I had an excuse to read all day if I wished. I had time to think and pray and the special blessing of a thirteen-year old granddaughter to help me. From the hermitage of my disability I had to abandon the computer and its demands and to accept the loss of creativity. I wondered if the desire to write would ever return and if I'd have the strength to resume writing if it did. While the progress on the sequel to The Scent of God came to a standstill, and I had to cancel events for A View of the Lake , I’m happy to say that the urge to write has returned and I hope soon have better news to share. Writing this newsletter is a start. What have you learned from your dark journey's? I look forward to hearing your news as I treasure this sharing. I pray that your days and lives will be blessed with strength and wisdom and inner peace.