Liturgy and Leaving

This morning was good but difficult.

We started with a liturgy that was moving and meaningful.  As we moved through the rhythm of the liturgy I was energized by our voices, joined in unison, hearts united in a single prayer together.  It was powerful because we were engaged and something bigger than any one of us was happening.  And it was sad because we reformers have done our best to avoid liturgy (while secretly building our own) and thus avoided the richness of tradition and the depth of our collective story.

It was particularly difficult because we openly started what many of us were feeling just below our studious surface: disengagement.  We’re 24 hours away from the end of the residency part of this module.  We’ll be doing some homework for the next month but we who have become one are becoming many again.

I'm excited about getting home but I'm apprehensive as well as sad to be leaving this experience – particularly as I reflect on having only one more module to go.  In March we’ll return, hopefully all of us will be here and then some, but some of us will be making our last ‘return’.  There’s a thesis to write or a project or some other options that some of us might choose to finish our Masters but we’ll finish on our own, without our band of brothers and sisters.  And I find that tough today while we’re still enjoying being together.

Here’s a “leaving prayer” attributed to the good St. Brendan who knew a thing or two about voyages:

Beyond these shores

Into the darkness

Beyond these shores

This boat may sail

And if this is the way

Then there will be

A path across this sea.

And if I sail beyond

The farthest ocean

Or lose myself in the depths below

Wherever I may go

Your love surrounds me

For You have been before

Beyond these shores.