I came ashore wearing dirty clothes of exhaustion,
still carrying the salt and struggle of the deep ocean.
I had fallen from the high horse of ministry
and no longer felt fully present to myself.
The retreat grounds seemed to know my condition
patches of brown grass, uprooted trees, fallen dry coconuts,
and a dry, crooked branch lying before the altar.
“Can these dry bones live again?” I asked.
Then the cool wind began to touch me.
It moved through the trees, across my face and around my tired body.
The sun slowly appeared from behind the dark clouds,
and the seashore became an oasis calling me home.
I did not need to explain everything to God.
I needed to collapse into Divine arms already waiting for me,
to become like Saul, helpless, dependent, led by others
and allow myself to be nursed back to life.
In Mary’s lap, I became small again.
She received my body, my smells, my vulnerability, without disgust.
Her gaze did not ask me to perform or prove anything.
It simply told me that I belonged.
Slowly, I began removing the clothes that concealed my wounds.
Jesus knelt and embraced my hidden wounds,
took my dirty feet into his hands
and entered the mess and muck of my life.
The dry log became the naked mental ill man by the roadside
I crossed over, trembling, and washed the dirt from his body.
As I clothed him, the distance between us disappeared
the wounded man lying there was also me
Then Jesus gathered the rugged log into his arms.
He held what was dry, misshapen and apparently useless
and wept because he was holding his beloved.
In that embrace, my masks began to loosen.
At the tomb of Lazarus, my question returned.
Jesus entered the grief, the smell and the decay
and called life out of what everyone believed was finished.
Yes, these dry bones can live again.
In the garden, the risen Jesus called Mary by name.
She wanted to hold the moment, but he invited her to rise and go.
I understood that the oasis was not given for clinging;
healing must eventually become a way of living.
Looking back, I saw how God had moved towards me:
God sensed, knew, understood, desired and prepared;
God met me, entered my wounds, walked beside me,
felt my sorrow and called me by name.
At last, I stood naked before God without shame.
The wound I had uncloaked became an opening for light.
God washed me and clothed me again
in tenderness, dignity and the knowledge that I am beloved.
Now my vacation becomes another stretch of the seashore.
I will rest, remain close to family and friends,
and receive bodily odours without judgement,
allowing the wind to remind me of how God met me here.
I am not returning as one whose healing is complete.
I return as one who has begun to live again,
carrying the oasis quietly within me
as I prepare to enter the deep ocean once more.
Beloved Reflections 