a desert creek says, no need to rush my dear friend, we will find our way
Wandering alongside my friend, creek, winding through the red rocked canyon, I feel rushed and distracted from a longing to be there, wherever there is. But my friend is not into rushing. Slowly creek meanders curving back and forth crossing the path designed for my human meandering abilities, which causes me to slow down and take the time to marvel at her miraculous presence in a land as dry as dust.
It is not only now, here in this red rocked canyon alongside desert creek, that I feel rushed and distracted from a longing to be there, wherever there is. I have felt this often, particularly when starting out somewhere new. Right now, I am impatient with the process of embedding myself in the community of the Southwest, of New Mexico, of Santa Fe. I feel frantic in the pursuit to learn the names, ways, and seasons of the high desert. I am hurried to know everyone in the community I serve and to become the best youth and environmental minister that ever was moving the desperately needed consciousness-shift forward in the midst of our climate crisis! All this may come with time, slowly meandering time, but I just want to be there now.
But life does not work that way, my meandering companion tells me. Desert streams do find a way in the wilderness and often by miraculous means. But they do not know where they will flow; they just flow. To be a desert stream requires a commitment to presence for you never know when you might dry up and need to seek new ways of moving onward.
We do not get to be at the end before we take the journey, and the journey takes time. This, my meandering and miraculous friend, tells me. And for a brief moment, I slip into presence and have faith that we will find our way.
Sacred Presence, instill in me faith
Sacred Presence
Who dwells in this very moment of prayer
hold me here with You
and as i breathe in
and as i breathe out
instill in me the faith
that in truth there is a way
a way where You and i
will always be together
