Holy Cross

Pilgrimage is a vitally important and adhered to practice at St. Simeon Skete.  

In his book "The Road to Emmaus, Pilgrimage as a Way of Life", Jim Forest says "Roads are the circulatory system of the human race and the original information highway. From times long before the written word, roads have linked house to house, town to town, and city to city."

The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out

of an inner journey.  The inner journey is the interpolation

of the meanings and signs of the outer journey.  One can 

have one without the other. It is better to have both.

                     -Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters

On this Feast Day of the Most Holy Cross, we took to the road to make pilgrimage to a little area known as Germantown in Louisville, Kentucky.  There we find another one of those "thin places"("thin places", a Celtic Christian term for "those rare locales where the distance between heaven and Earth collapses") that you happen upon that is somewhat forlorn and forgotten except for a few who realize the significance of the place. 

We've been here before and as a child my grandfather and I would take walks to the Grotto.  At that time, it was part of the enclosure of St. Joseph's Infirmary.  Its now hidden off the side of a main highway and encircled by apartment complexes.  At first glance, its hardly noticeable.

As you close in on it, its a bit difficult to figure out what it is...

However as you walk towards it, the enclosure reveals its purpose. 

As we walked inside, immediately you feel drawn to prayer.  

On this Feast of the Holy Cross, we felt called, especially in this place, to say the Stations of the Cross.  We said the opening prayers at the Grotto

At the skete, we begin the stations with the Garden of Gethsemani, so we turned around to face the garden.  (You can see the apartment dwellings all around the area).  

One by one we followed the Way of the Cross, even singing (out loud) the Stabat Mater between each station. 

The hand painted Stations are vividly incredible.  

The rain began to fall as we journeyed through each Station of the Cross. But it was only a mist and it served to enhance the mystical atmosphere. 

Its my belief that there are many places like these, scattered about hidden smack in the middle of life, subdivisions and Pallet Yards.   We must search them out, stop what we are doing and take the time to go closer. 

"...Moses's turning aside from his original path. He felt that the marvel of the Burning Bush warranted making a stop; he was moved with desire to contemplate it and ponder deeply on it.  He accepted without question this sudden, extraordinary, divine event.  And it was because he did not hesitate to change his direction towards the Burning Bush that God was able to call to him. 'And when the Lord saw that..(Moses) turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.'

All this applies just as much to us today as it did to Moses. If during the course of our lives we hurry along without stopping, without even a glance towards the Burning Bush (which nevertheless continues its blazing along the whole of our way, though most of the time our eyes are close to it), we shall miss the opportunity God desires.  If, on the contrary, we do not hesitate to leave aside for a time the flocks of Jethro - our daily cares - the Lord will call to us from the midst of the bush.  He will call to each on of us by a name that is our own. 

Moses answered 'Here am I' without knowing what God would require of him.  Such declaration of being at His disposal is what the Lord awaits from us also.

May we place ourselves before Him, before the Burning Bush, and say: 'Here I am at this moment. Here I am in this very place.  Here am I for Thee, without any reservations whatever.'  " -L. Gillet

Winds of Change

Yesterday, I told you about the wonderful "LOVE Scale" at the Pallet Yard. We found something else on that same property that I want to share today.  God is absolutely everywhere trying to break into our life, we only need to look for him - in our neighbor, at the grocery, at the gas station, at work and yes,... in a Pallet Yard. 

Next to the scale was a statue of a woman, a mother standing tall as the winds of change bear down on her.

. 

The sign reads 

The sign says "Yet I do not want to be anymore than I am; a woman, your mother"; I am reminded we must be leery of the false self that seeks to please the world.  Do not listen to what society and progression dictates you should do, be who God made you to be, the real you. "All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made." -John 1:3

"Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." - 1John 4:4

A Hundred Wishes

There is a saying "When you look at a field of dandelions you can either see a hundred weeds or a hundred wishes."

Hurricanes just slammed into Texas and Florida, Fires are raging through the Montana, people are protesting for peace in a very violent way, the kids all have runny noses and coughs, grandma and grandpa are getting a divorce...    It seems all we hear is bad news.  Its easy to feel overwhelmed and flat out disgusted and believe there is no good left in world.  But there is.  Where? You have to shut the laptop, put away the phone and go out into the world and take note.  There is no fear, no threat that stimulates our brain to automatically take note of the good.  You have to look for it and this is why constant attention to Social Media, News and such can create negativity in you.   

So yesterday, we went out into the world to take note of the good. And we found it, hidden away in a most unexpected environment.  In Southern Indiana, there is a Pallet Company in the middle of a forlorn industrial area running along the railroad tracks.  There we found a large scale, it would be easy to drive right past it without noticing it.  But we saw it.  

Further investigation revealed that on the two weights - one had the word "LOVE" 

and the other weight said "EVERYTHING ELSE" 

The scale was tipped in weight toward the side of LOVE

under each weight, there was a pyramid

on the pyramid under the "EVERYTHING ELSE" weight it said, "Always too much" 

and under the weight of LOVE, the pyramid said "Never enough"

What an incredible sight to find in the midst of a pallet factory!  

Please, make a point to look for what is hidden, we've lost so much by trying to keep in touch on Facebook instead of going out amongst people, we're missing what is out there - - go out, take a deep breath and blow out a hundred wishes!