Mtr Mary Trainor

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief...For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

                                                                   “The Peace of Wild Things,” Wendell Berry

Dear friend,

If we’re lucky, we have found a place to be free. If only for a little while. If only on rare occasions.

Such a place can be rooted in geography, but this idea of place is larger than physical location. Place is where or what or who we seek when we need peace, clarity, direction, affirmation, transformation, inspiration, confirmation, love.

We can enter such a space through a favorite location, and we also can enter such a place through music, reading, writing, friendship, prayer, knitting, pets, gardening, meditation, exercise. The list is as varied as we are, but the objective is the same: To orient our lives to God’s time and God’s will, to come to terms with what weighs us down, to make peace with the present, the past, and with what lies ahead.

I suspect it is possible to have more than one such place. The person who can find that is a rich person, indeed. I would count myself lucky to find one.

For Jesus, such a place was the Mount of Olives, and we join him there again in today’s Office reading from Luke. This visit is different; it will be his last. With disciples sleeping nearby, Jesus drops to his knees in anguish, asks the Father to stop what is about to happen—but only if willing. He is comforted by an attending angel, prays hard, sweats great drops. When he stands, he calls the disciples to attention, even as the arresting entourage arrives.

By the time he stands up from praying, we sense something is different. A peace is present. A dreadful outcome reconciled. God’s will accepted. All of this aided by a reliably trustworthy place.

Finding such a place is vital to a life of faith. It needn’t be fancy, but it can be. It needn’t be far away, but it can be. We don’t need to go there all the time, but we need to know we can. It is essential for spiritual health.

I knew a woman of extremely modest means who was so in love with God that she dreamed of travelling the globe, visiting all the holy sites. She imagined the Holy Land. She imagined herself standing on the Mount Olives, the place that meant so much to Jesus. And she also knew she never would set foot there, she never would gaze from there upon Jerusalem in the way that Jesus did.

So she did the next best thing. She found a place she could afford, a convenient venue where she could always pray and be present in the holiest of ways to the Holiest of Holies. She converted a closet in her home to be her chapel, where she could sit or kneel, speak or be silent; where angels could attend, where peace could be found, and God’s will accepted.

For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Mtr. Mary