Wild Good

One cannot begin to face the real difficulties of the life of prayer and meditation unless one is first perfectly content to be a beginner and really experience oneself as one who knows little or nothing, and has a desperate need to learn the bare rudiments.

Those who think they “know” from the beginning will never, in fact, come to know anything.
Thomas Merton

Concerning my own humble person, I frankly confess that as an author I am a king without a country
and also, in fear and much trembling,
an author without any claims.
Søren Kierkegaard

These are the reflections of
simple common sense
by a non-specialist.
Jacques Ellul

Therefore
once more
I will astound
these people
with wonder
upon wonder;
the wisdom
of the wise
will perish,
the intelligence
of the intelligent
will vanish

You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Isaiah 29

I was on a spiritual retreat in the mountains of British Columbia. Out poured this late night journal entry.

When everything feels like the movies;
you bleed just to know you’re alive.
Goo Goo Dolls – Iris

Wild Good
I am seated at a teak desk in a quiet room. On my left, an ocean blue candle deepens behind an iron railway spike from Kitchener, Ontario. On my right, a crimson tea light bleeds before a cross of nails and wood crafted from the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, England. Across the room, incense smolders between two tall flames standing in candlesticks purchased in the market of Calcutta, India.

Above me, on the wall, hangs a simple crucifix.
A six inch figure gazes down in my direction.
Nails in his hands and feet. He looks at me.
Crown of thorns on his head. He looks at me.
Candlelight silhouettes his sore tired frame.

It’s Friday, ten to midnight at Westminster Abbey in Mission, British Columbia – a Benedictine monastery. It’s the first weekend of Lent, a time of personal preparation before Easter. I have just returned to my room from some beautiful worship and prayer with friends. We sang chants, read scripture, and prayed for an hour.

Early in our time together, I flipped over the song sheet to read the benediction and noticed it began with, “Great Spirit, Wild Good of the Almighty…” Wild Good? It was supposed to read, “Wild Goose.” In the Middle Ages, the wild goose was supposedly a symbol for the Holy Spirit. I have never thought of the Holy Spirit as a wild goose. But for the rest of this prayer retreat I will think of Him as my Wild Good.

Wild Good
There is a whole gen- eration in my nation suffocating without you. They are anaemic vampires, drained haemo- philiacs, and exhausted rebels digging their own dusty graves.

Wild Good
Speak softly and tenderly into this still dark night. Thank you for the safe places where we may catch some breath and respond to you. Places to rest and wait – rest and wait. In and out – rest and wait.

In silence we wait;
under your feathers.
They brush our cheeks;
and calm our fears.
Wild Good