joy of nine9

My  week can be summed up best by an 8 word story, written in the tradition of Ernest Hemingway’s famous 6 word story.

An 8 word story

Impenetrable darkness imprisoned; brilliant flame of truth freed.

An Augustinian priest prayed for me on Monday.

Then, during silent prayer, while I simply lay, resting in his presence, smiling like and full of joy, a burning orb of light pushed out tension and control out of my body. It was a simple exchange of light for darkness and a sense of expansion within as my capacity to receive light, joy and life increased.

To celebrate, I built a bonfire. We are still cleaning up our seven acres which means burning piles of brush and  fallen trees or dead tree that still need to be chopped down. Sometimes bonfires are a sort of symbolic, spiritual act for me; we allow the fire of God to burn old sin within us, lighting our souls on fire with his love at the same time.

“All the darkness in the world 

cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”

-St. Francis