Recently, our Vocations team had a day of reflection based on the theme, Slow Me Down, Lord. Typically, we gather in the morning for shared prayer & reflection on the theme and then off we go to our various corners of the world to pray and to just BE. In the afternoon, we return to our zoom screens and share the fruits of our contemplation. We take turns planning these days. Mary Ellen George, OPA planned this particular one and started the day off with an excerpt from the poem of the same title by Wilfred Peterson.
Slow me down Lord
Ease the pounding of my heart
by the quieting of my mind.
Now, pause right there. Read it again and take a deep breath.
When is the last time you took a day of prayer and reflection – just a day for you and God?
May I be so bold as to suggest that you take out your calendar and schedule one right now. Schedule it before the days and evenings are filled up with meetings, trips, and zoom dinners with your friends, or just activities of daily living. God is waiting for you and you for God.
One of the blessings of this pandemic time is that we have had to pause and reset what our “normal” is. In the beautiful narrative poem, The Great Realization, Tomos Roberts put into words much of what many of us have realized. That being our priorities are askew, our lives are out of balance and we have not called our mother/father/sister/friend in a very long time. Roberts challenges us, in the guise of a children’s story, to wake up and make some long-term changes for the betterment of the world, our lives, families and societies.
As Dominican Sisters and Associates of Peace, we are called to live a balanced life of prayer, community, ministry, and study. The operative word is balanced. If we embrace it and live it – not just give it lip service – we just may preach this new realization with our lives. And grow into that person God intended us to be – which is summed up well in the closing stanza of Peterson’s poem.
Slow me down Lord
and inspire me to send my roots
deep into the soil of life’s enduring values
that I may grow toward the stars of my greater destiny.
Slow me down Lord
Are you longing for a life of balance, community, prayer and meaningful service? Is God calling you to explore the possibility of religious life? Contact us to start the conversation or to attend one of our upcoming programs. We are waiting for you.