Surprised by Grace

I have discerned that I am not called to monastic life after all. When I left my position as rector of St. Paul’s on-the-Hill, I believed that God was calling me to be a postulant with the Society of St. Margaret in Massachusetts, where I would have the opportunity to discern if I was being called to a life-long commitment to their order. What happened really surprised me (a sure sign that I’m letting go of control and really listening/hearing God). As soon as I left St. Paul’s on-the-Hill, I felt more open to God and God’s will for me. I went on a seven-day silent directed retreat at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville PA a on January 7^th. The picture of the tree in the fog was taken during the retreat. Early in the morning, I would wake up to this fog surrounding the grounds and the retreat center, which spoke to me of God’s loving embrace…the Holy Spirit surrounding me with care and a gentleness.

During the retreat, I realized that I had made the decision to go to the convent (apply to go) based on good reasons; it was reasonable for me, but not based on an actual call from God. So I prayed about what had caused me to think I was called to monastic life, and in the prayer I knew it had to do with wanting to serve God with the sort of devotion that the Sisters have…I too wanted to be transformed to God’s greater glory so as to live my life to God’s glory and in the service of others. In this prayer, God was helping me with what we, in spiritual direction, call the discernment of spirits. The idea being that we are called by God to live life to the fullest and that everyone is called to glorify God in his or her life, and that to do so we have to make choices.

In order to know what to choose, we take part in a process of discernment. In the lives of those who are seeking to do God’s will –seeking to be faithful followers of Christ—we can be faced with two good choices…either one could be good for us and good for the world. But as St. Ignatius said, we are called to what is most in tune with God’s purpose for us, which always has something to do with freeing us to be more fully ourselves and to be servants to others. This is what I knew I was being called to address on the retreat, and I felt the freedom to do so, and the grace to have the courage to do so. It has taken courage for me because I’m the sort of person who does not change a plan that has been made and publicized widely, including being reported in the Virginia Episcopalian!

I wanted to go the convent. But, in my prayer, I received a clear sense from God, direction from God, to continue to live my life in “the world” and not go to the convent. Instead, I heard God say to me that I am being transformed now, in the life I live, in the life God has given me as the person God has created me to be, right here and now.   I share this with you because I know some of you want to know more than can be put on Facebook, or that I wanted to put on Facebook, and also because what has been going on in my life has taught me a lot about discernment and perhaps hearing my story will be helpful to you in your discernment now or later.

 

As well, this was an “angel in the alley” experience for me, in that I experienced grace in an unexpected way. I’m living now with a deep sense of joy and freedom even though all of my plans have, in a sense, fallen apart. But in my plans falling away, I’m more able to live my life for God and be more fully the person God has created me to be…more than ever.

An Outsider

The angel in the alley made an impression on me when I was a young girl. Why did it? What was that? I saw the angel in the stained-glass window from the outside only. Did I feel the energy and the power of God, the love of God, reaching out to me, using this angel in a stained-glass window? God will use the circumstances of our lives to connect with us. I never saw the inside of that church, or the angel in her full glory, with bright colors, as visible from the inside. I was always looking at that icon from the outside. I was an outsider when it came to the Church, organized religion...my parents were going to save me from all that...all the negative aspects of the Church as an institution. I never saw the inside of that church, as a child. We left Winchester when I was seven years old; my mom and dad and I moved to Miami. We left, but the angel never left me.

An Angel in one Alley



God connects with us all the time through what we know and the circumstances of our lives. Praying about what has happened to us in the past gives God a chance to show us more than we could understand at the time. A prayer experience that I had a few years ago on retreat is the inspiration for this writing project, "Angels in the Alley." In this post, I will share the experience that happened in the 1970s, and in future posts, more will be shared about my experience. As the blog develops, concepts about God, knowing God, experiencing God, will be considered in a way that I hope will be helpful to you as you reflect on your relationship with God.

When I was a little girl living in Winchester Virginia, my Dad and I would walk our dog around the streets and side-streets of Old Town Winchester. We often walked down what I thought of as an alley, a bit of an out-of-the-way area, away from the cars and other people. A pocket of silence in a busy world. As I think about it now, it feels still. We walked by this large building, I'm not sure if I knew it was church when I was four years old, but it was. We walked by, and I would look up, and I would see this angel, right there, and I thought of her as "my angel," (probably not "her" but to me she was). I don't remember thinking about the angel much when we weren't walking by that church, but the image and the memory never left me.