“Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.a
Give me your hand..”
This poem by Rainer Maria Rilke always gets to me every time I read it.
I first heard it on a retreat from a colleague and a friend. I launched my website on that same retreat.
I remember having feelings of both beauty and terror as I worked on all the details. Some people take months perfecting a website and ironing everything out until it has just the right amount of sparkle and life.
I spent a few hours one evening determined to give it life even if it had a few scratches and dents. It’s like, once I decided to put my work and my voice out there… it had to happen right that very moment. I had to do it before the terror overwhelmed the beauty and I let the desire go.
Guess this poem helped give me courage back then.
That retreat was in February 2019. We went again in February 2020 and it was my last trip out of Texas.
This year, those kinds of trips return, and I’m feeling it again – the beauty and the terror.
The beauty is always in the people I met, the Ignatian educators who get what I do and why I do it. I long to interact with them once again. It’s been too long… and a zoom call just isn’t sufficient.
But there’s the terror too… and I don’t think I have to explain that one. I’m not even sure I really could. It’s a complex web of emotions that comes from being human, a parent, alive in this most unusual time.
So, this morning as I think about some moments ahead where I need courage, some moments where I’m going to need to reach out for that hand God offers… I’m turning back to this beautiful poem that starts with these two powerful lines:
“God speaks to each of us as God makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.”
Do you need a little courage today?
Reach out for that hand God is offering and take a step forward into the light ahead.
