Dear Fellow Pilgrims,
While on retreat in September with some close friends and colleagues from the Graduate School of Theology at St. John’s University, I was introduced to the contemplative spiritual practice called Soul Collaging. Without getting into the weeds with details, it is a prayerful practice that starts by contemplating art and image in a way that inspires the soul’s deepest voices to speak sacred truth. For me, it proved to be spiritually powerful and revealing. I’d like to share just one poem with you that resonated from within as I engaged the practice.
Journey well.
I am the quantum quark of moment, the joy of right now,
Life’s only laughing, crying, breathing spark
I am a million billion neurons in full firework
Or complete shutdown
Or whatever best celebrates
the you who I AM made be
I am mindfulness
I am nothingness
To you I give my life
so you might taste the kiss of another
melt into an unknown child’s smile
dance among the dandelions
and inhale a drunkard’s draw on autumn air
I want you to remain here with me, in me
To share me freely, to love me fully
To live and never die
I am the moment who lives only once forever
I am not God alone
but through you, in you
and with the sinners next door,
together we are all that I AM