Dear Friends,
I write to you from my desk at Beseck Lake. Home.
Familiar sights and sounds welcome me, my husband’s patient love sustains me, and memories from Iona come into my heart and dreams. I’m not sure where this pilgrimage experience will lead me, ultimately. Like you, my life is filled with responsibilities and with choices. I seek invitations in the morning quiet or the unexpected moments along the trail. I rest in wonder and hold gratitude for gifts yet to come.
I had planned that this Glimmer would complete my Iona reflections and I would return to my monthly outreach to you. But as I continue to process my experience in Scotland, I’m letting go of such planning. Instead, I’m called to listen more deeply and trust more fully. Today the morning’s light fog is a white curtain from sky to water’s edge. Our patch of green is enclosed, and all the creatures, plants and I are safely held in the clean, white presence that surrounds us. My heart rests in this space as I think of you, my companions on this journey.
I return home with a new-found layer of self respect, of wonder at my bravery to meet so many challenges at this stage of my life. In prayer, I scoop up my littlest-self with love and gratitude. Challenges were everywhere in her young life and she kept going, she survived. Today, she and I watch the protective white layer of fog thin out and the expanse of the lake come into view. My trust deepens in this moment and I remember Julian of Norwich…
“All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Friends, perhaps a pilgrimage – or a crisis, life-change, encounter – offers opportunity for such clarity. Perhaps, when our hearts are available to God’s invitations, we’re offered glimpses of the Holy…through another, through an ocean wave, through ourselves…and we can hear the words “Welcome Home.”
With deep gratitude for your participation in my pilgrimage, Lisa