Through readings, visio divina, prayer, and silence Marcella Kraybill-Greggo and Penny Joy Day gently guide us through a contemplative PAUSE to honor the Equinox in both the northern and the southern hemisphere, and to experience a deep collective breath with our global Wisdom community.
Recorded on Zoom – Sunday March 20, 2022
During the equinox as the sun crosses the equator, day and night are of equal length. The journey of the sun represents our spiritual journey, our Easter journey, from darkness to light, from death to rebirth, as in nature. This Lenten equinox Wisdom event gathers our globe-spanning community, to breathe together, to pray together, to find our balance.
Marcella Kraybill-Greggo is a seminary director, spiritual director, event facilitator, and chair of Wisdom Waypoints Council. She makes her home with her family in Lehigh Valley, PA, USA.
Penny Joy Day is a narrative therapist, coach, retreat leader, and life skills consultant based in Cape Town, South Africa.
Readings:
Gospel of Thomas Logion 77
Yeshua says,
I am the light
shining upon all things.
I am the sum of everything,
for everything has come forth from me,
and towards me everything unfolds.
Split a piece of wood,
and there I am.
Pick up a stone
and you will find me there.
For a new Beginning – John O Donohue
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you are ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
An excerpt from Called to Life, Called to Love: Lenten Reflections from the Works of Henri J.M. Nouwen
Lent is the most important time of the year to nurture our inner life. It is the time during which we not only prepare ourselves to celebrate the mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus, but also the death and resurrection that constantly takes place within us. Life is a continuing process of the death of the old and the familiar, and being reborn again into a new hope, a new trust, and a new love. The death and resurrection of Jesus therefore is not just an historical event that took place a long time ago, but an inner event that takes place in our heart when we are willing to be attentive to it.
Reading from Luke 1:78 & 79, NVSR
By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
An Anglican Prayer Book, pgs 10,11
Worship releases into the world, with its need and it’s pain, its sorrow and its hope, an influence for healing and wholeness which we shall never fully comprehend.
Prayer from Pádraig Ó Tuama: Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community, p13
God of promises,
sometimes we wait generations
for the dawn from on high;
sometimes only years.
We wait for justice and hope and light and kindness
to mingle in the tangle of days.
And we age while we hope.
So we age and hope
with tenderness and truth.
Because you are tender and true
even though we sometimes wonder.
Amen.
Chants, Videos, and Additional Resources:
Siyahamba (We Are Walking in the Light of God) · Voices for Christ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5oeHqgIgEo
Acorn becomes oak tree in timelapse video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS2toXyZAy0
Encircling prayer – CAIM PRAYER – by Christine Valters Paintner from her book The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices For Seeking the Sacred
Canticle of the Creatures by Simon de Voil: https://simondevoil.com/wee-videos