Sunday

                                                                       Todays Collect 

grant that, 

with you 
as our ruler &
guide, 
we may 
so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal

I love this collect. I usually think of it in terms of the good times in life drawing us away from “the things eternal.” And so when I got the verse today and came in to look for the right picture, I was looking for something beautiful and perhaps beguiling. I looked at the detail of an ancient mosaic of a dove on a birdbath, the background a brilliant blue. Or a nautilus shell. Or a garden with a beautiful red wooden arch. Or a field of flowers. But then I remembered this watercolor which  I have had it for years - I don’t know who did it or how I got it. (If You do, tell me!) It has always intrigued me, with its two, is it three, figures. I came across it again yesterday in the garage, propped up over the workbench by the Indian figure who sways when you touch her, and I brought it into the house. Then  just now,  looking for the right picture to accompany the verse, it called to me. I scanned it into the computer and entitled it “journey,”  And it was the right picture, though it changed my meditation altogether. I have a friend who is going through a hard time and this too, it whispered, can distract us from the “things eternal.” Pain and fear, loss and diminishment, uncertainty and change can all focus us on ourselves until we are alone in the storm. But the picture shows me, whispers to me, reminds me that we are not alone, without having to use inherently clunky, earthbound, always teetering-on-the-preachy words. What it has whispered to me all these years, without my being conscious of it, is that we are not alone in the storm. And storm it often is, hence the phrase "trudging the Road of Happy Destiny"  in the chapter A Vision for You  in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Whether it is a beloved spouse or a friend, or God Himself who walks with us, I pray that in this present moment, we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal.