As a kid at Lutheran elementary school, I remember spreading my hands across a pantomimed path while singing along at chapel: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” The lamplight I envisioned as I sang was a sort of downwelling, golden glow that filled the whole path with light and left no shadow unilluminated.
Living in the dorm affectionately dubbed “2K” by BC students, I have come to appreciate the beauty of a good lamp. The common rooms and bedrooms have no in-ceiling lighting, and one must improvise with lamps to light the room if one wants to avoid tripping violently around the apartment after dark.
I would suggest that perceiving God’s will in our lives, or word of God to which the Psalmist refers, is often more like walking by the lamplight in my apartment than my childhood imagination of this mystical lamp. How often do we experience the luminosity of the Transfiguration or the Baptism of Christ, complete with booming voice from heaven and blinding light? More often it seems more like we are walking by the guidance of very limited lamplight, or no light at all.
This time last year, I started to get the sense that it was time to make a retreat, so I prayed about it, talked to my spiritual director and started looking into visiting St. Scholastica Priory, a Benedictine monastery a friend recommended. As I began to chart out my course into Western Massachusetts via public transit, I realized just how improbable it was that I would make it all the way there without a hitch. It did indeed feel a little more like hitch-hiking when I finally did depart. The route: bus, T, transfer to Amtrak, another bus, a grocery shuttle, and then… I didn’t really have a plan past that point, but hoped that Uber would carry me the last short leg to the monastery.
Riding the T, I almost missed my stop for the transfer to the Amtrak train, and I barely made it in time to board before it left the station. A series of nearly missed transfers got me to the grocery shuttle, and I rode along until I was at the stop closest to the monastery and got off. Then I realized that there were no Ubers for miles and miles around. Thankfully, there was a gas station with a chatty clerk who let me loiter inside as I used the last of my phone battery to call St. Scholastica Priory. They answered, thank God, and Mother Agnes drove to pick me up.
The graces of the retreat itself were well worth the pilgrimage that it required. In the quiet of the retreat house, the beauty of the chanted Liturgy of the Hours, and the natural beauty of rural Massachusetts, God spoke to me in just the way He wanted to. Walking back to the guesthouse after Night Prayer by only the light of the stars, I realized just how much the hand of God had carried me to where I stood.
Looking back, I see all the spots in my trip that could have left me stranded in the middle of nowhere without cell service or a way home. I also see a blazing trail of light where, in the moment, all I saw were dim glimmers of confirmation that I was moving in the right direction. Moment after moment that I thanked God for that barely caught train, that unusually thoughtful bus driver, that friendly gas station clerk, I started to recognize the little lamps lighting my path. In retrospect, they are blindingly bright.
In daily life, the path may seem dark, with only moments of confirmation that we’re following God’s will. But if we look back frequently to reflect on the path already travelled, with an eye to discernment and a heart open to gratitude, the ways in which God was lighting our way to the place we stand today might appear a little clearer. Perhaps a better way to phrase my question from before: How often do we experience the luminosity of the Transfiguration or the Baptism of Christ, complete with booming voice from heaven and blinding light, and not realize it? Let us continue to walk forward by whatever light God grants us, and never cease to give thanks for the ways in which he carries us without our knowing it.
Featured image courtesy of PickPik
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