Growing up my family had the ritual, like many, of praying before we ate dinner.  It was called, saying grace. Such a lovely phrase, saying grace. I didn’t experience as saying grace then but more like some kind of required password before starving children could eat. But I like recalling it now. God is great, God is good and we thank God for our food. For these and all thy gifts of love we give thee thanks and praise, O Lord.

As we peek out now from our Pandemic shelters and begin this next journey, I find it feels a little awkward, not what I expected, unfamiliar. I am acknowledging the realness of this transition and letting it unfold gently and mindfully. I notice how tired I feel. And I notice my desire to say grace, to give thanks: for all the grace present in the last year and a half; all the companions I walked with in my Centering Prayer practice and weekly BioSpiritual Focusing meditation and Contemplative Liturgies; the beautiful souls that I have had the privilege of journeying with at Stillpoint and in the neighborhood where I live; our leaders, essential workers, scientists that we relied on; the companionship of our pets; the texts sending prayers and jokes and images. All grace. And the grace of Zoom waiting for us here. Saying these out loud and before you now is its own form of grace. Maybe you want to share some of yours. 

As we seem to be nearing the shore of this pandemic in our country, this poem is companioning me now. Stanley Kunitz’s words have come to to me these days, When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I gather strength to proceed on my journey…

He encourages us to live in the layers not the litter. To say grace. 

Maybe it will bless you on your journey, as it has me on mine. 

Elizabeth+

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

I am not done with my changes.

—Stanley Kunitz