Good morning…
I love the healing rituals we do while on retreat. Usually, that is. Usually, I love each wise healing ritual.
But yesterday, as instructed, I blindly picked out a rock from a soft bags of stones, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the engraved stone randomly resting in my hand. Other people picked rocks with great words. Hope. Pray. Breathe. Imagine. But I didn’t like the small stone staring back at me. My own rock said, “Success”. Worldly. Type A. Not my life’s focus. I was really disappointed my rock said, “Success.”
I turned my rock over, and, when it was my time to share, I said, “I like the flip side of my stone better.” Opaque. Blank slate. Open to be written upon.
Success. “God, why would my rock say, ‘Success’?”
As we moved into free time, I enjoyed a habit I often cherish when I visit the Ignatius House Retreat Center. I go to the library and browse through new-to-me books, trusting the Spirit to guide me to fresh wisdom. No kidding. The first page I opened shared the story below.
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Excerpt from Madonnas of Color by Bro. Mickey McGrath, p. xix
One day during lunch in Nairobi, one of the teens who was part of the mural painting project which brought me there said, “You are always asking us questions, may I ask you one?” I said of course, figuring it was going to be something like, “Why do Americans call chips french friends?” (I was ready with an answer to that one: “I have no idea.”) Instead, he said, “What is your definition of success?” I stuttered and gasped out a bunch of “why, ums” and “well, uhs” until I finally told him that “success comes when we discover our unique gifts and nurture them and use them, because then we will be happy and successful no matter what we do. It is not about how much money we make.” And he replied, “I agree with that,” at which point we all went back to concentrating on lunch.
That young man was an angel Gabriel in that moment, reminding me that Christ is incarnate in the most unexpected faces and places, even in a mundane luncheon feast of friend chicken and chips . . . or french friends, if you prefer.
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Success. There it was, this weird-to-me word. “Success comes when we discover our unique gifts and nurture them and use them.”
Success comes. True success is not manmade, manipulated, manufactured. Real success only comes. When we discover, nurture, and use our unique gifts, success comes as a gift from God.
Discover. Nurture. Use my unique gifts. Holy Spirit, please help me to do these three things each day. Whatever comes next is up to you.
Let the words from the book of the law be always on your lips. Meditate on them day and night so that you may be careful to live by all that is written in it. If you do, as you make your way through this world, you will prosper and always find success (Joshua 1:8, VOICE).
Now I think my right hand picked the exact right stone.
…Sue…
