April 19, 2004

An Irish Blessing

May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

A Sign: A Star

“It is necessary to have chaos within oneself in order to give birth to a brilliant star.”

Nietzsche

Prayer After a Day on the Camino

Our Father, God our brother,
who has shared my road since I was born,
I want to put in your hands what I have lived
to pick it up again tomorrow
filled with feelings.

From the child I was until what I am today,
from that first love that awoke life in me,
that long ago youth that struggled for a thousand true causes,
all the poems that I wrote full of promises
convinced that I had been born for a special reason,
and all the broken dreams that made me grow,
even without being aware of it, until becoming me.

Everything I have from you, oh God,
from the first certainty of the divinity
that we carry within and which encourages us
until the last encounter with you today, at each step of the
road that you have led me to.
Each stretch of road, each day of my life,
you have taught me that to love is also to suffer,
that to dream is to also struggle,
that to walk is also to search,
it is not time that one spends;
it is our life that we must spend.

And it does not matter that my name or my work remain
or the backwater of my memory of someone
if my life is filled with your LIFE;
the rest that you will give me is over and above.

Show me your roads, Lord,
And make me a searcher because I want to find you.

Word of God - Matthew 6, 21

“For your heart will always be where your riches are.”

Stage 2: In Search

The poor man from Asissi for not having anything; he had neither projects nor clear ideas about his future. Here is the greatness and the drama of the prophet. He is a man thrown by a greater force onto a road that no one as yet walked, with no assurance of a successful end and without knowing what risks await him at the next crossroad.

Without even knowing how to be faithful to God the following day. Opening a road, step by step, blow by blow, without knowing which is the next step to be taken, to open his eyes each morning and set out alone on the road to continue discovering your own life.”

(Francis of Assisi, the Good Person)

A Sign: A Handful of Dirt

Take some dirt from your place of origin and leave a little at the end of each stage. It will help you see what you have left and what you have received in exchange.

Prayer for Beginning to Walk

Our Father, God the Creator,
you have created me, the sun, and the stars,
you have filled my spirit with restlessness
and you have sown the earth with roads.
You created clear water to quench thirst,
you filled the fields with wheat to satisfy our hunger
But you left an emptiness in my heart,
a mark of your Spirit
that keeps me from my daily routine
that asks me to push aside my security
that carries me off to look for a greater fullness.

Like the life that emerges from a seed,
with the strength of a current of water,
with the eagerness of a child at his first steps,
today I come out of “my earth” to start this road.
From the pure and simple confidence of knowing
that it is you who puts man on the road,
who watches over my steps and offers me protection,
today I am also called Abraham
and I need to hear your voice, know your will,
set out in search of you, oh God!

Lead me not into the temptation
of looking back, of remembering comforts
of demanding preferences, of placing conditions,
or of yielding at the first sign of tiredness.

Give me the strength to arrive every day,
enough light to never get lost,
to never get lost
perseverance to overcome difficulties,
fellowship to share hopes
and to celebrate the joys of each day.

Oh God, fill all my days
with your bread and your Word.