Three times a year, the ELPC Spirtual Life Committee offers contemplative retreats with different themes, but they all include open time and space for rest, prayer, stillness, and reflection in community with others. Save the dates for our next retreat, January 31–February 2. And read the following reflection from one of our retreatants on our last retreat in October.
Come.
That’s the “sacred word” I thought of when the spiritual retreat leader advised us to choose a one- or two-syllable word to use during centering prayer to call our minds back when they started to wander. She suggested “God” or “Spirit,” but that seemed too obvious to me, and not actually in keeping with what I would need. When my mind strayed from seeking to be quiet, focused, open and available to God, I would need a command, a request, a plea: Come.
Come, God. Come, Spirit.
Come back into the forefront of my consciousness, come be my focus, come fill me up.
Ten minutes of silent centering prayer. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, went into the darkness. I could feel myself emptying out, being open and available—but what about the schedule tomorrow? When will I make time to swim? Come.
I can feel the quiet surround me again, a minute(?) goes by. Quiet, peaceful—but what was the starting word I thought of earlier to use for Wordle tomorrow? Come.
It goes on like this. I know in prayer and meditation you are not supposed to blame yourself for a wandering mind, but simply to notice it. And then gently call your mind back from the distraction.
Were we two-thirds of the way through, perhaps, when my mind’s eye just saw and felt water, a waterfall, right in front of me, pouring down? It felt like the Spirit. My mind’s gaze drifted to one side; I’d lost the waterfall.
But come.
And as I repeat, “Come, come, come,” in my head, I’m seeing the night sky, the stars, almost being out amidst the cosmos, pulled up above my body. It’s just for a second or two, but my mind’s gaze starts to lose this. And so again, “Come.”
Yet this time I’m struck by what seems to me, at least, to be a revelation: when in this posture of centering prayer, my “come” was not always me calling to God—it had also become God calling to me.
Helping me to see my most peaceful places of rest and awe—a high waterfall, the abundantly deep and starry night sky, and now, near the end of our allotted time, an undeniable sense of a river. God calls, “Come,” for me to walk beside it.
And come to the waterfall.
And come up among the very stars in the firmament.
The singing bowl chimes, thrice.
Deep breath, and I open my eyes, here among this community of seekers.
Come. Come to all of this, life more abundantly.