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The Rosary | |
March 06th, 2018 | |
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I like to pray the rosary. I didn't understand it for a really | |
long time. Even when I made my way back to Catholicism it never | |
made any sense to me. The formal, stilted prayer of my childhood | |
didn't sit well with me. It felt like a performance and not | |
a connection to the divine. | |
The first time I tried it was more of a lark than an honest | |
effort. The repetition, the monotonous droning of voices, it all | |
added up to nonsense. I tried it anyway. | |
At first I was lost in the specifics, the order, which comes next, | |
and what is a Sorrowful Mystery. Somewhere around the second | |
decade--that is, the second set of 10 Hail Mary prayers--I lost | |
focus on the words I was saying and felt my mind snap shut onto an | |
intention. I thought of a close friend who needed the kind of help | |
that comes from God, the kind that's deep inside. I said the words | |
and before I knew it the decade ended. As the Our Father began | |
again my mind flashed to someone else and held fast. Ten prayers | |
repeated without a single distracted thought stepping in the way. | |
It is the way of a mantra. It is the spirit of the mandala. It is | |
found in a thousand traditions in a thousand faiths in a thousand | |
forms. The repetition, the effort spent on the menial to provide | |
focus for the sublime, that is the spirit I find in the rosary. | |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | |
Tonight I completed work on a small stick that my son picked up on | |
a walk. It's about 9 inches long and not much more than a twig. It | |
has been cleaned of bark, soaked in boiled linseed oil, waxed, and | |
then carefully wrapped in about 4,000 individual threaded knots. | |
The colors are purple and orange, as he picked them. I'll share | |
a picture of it on Mastodon without any description so the only | |
ones in-the-know will be gopher.club. | |
I made one of these for myself years ago while on a silent | |
retreat. It became, in a sense, a focus of prayer and intention | |
much like the rosary. My mind was free to engage on one special | |
thought because my body was burning away distraction through | |
precise, monotonous physical actions. | |
The meaning behind the sticks isn't important to others, but | |
I thought the idea something you all might relate to. I suspect | |
there's some element in the passion of knitters, bikers, and | |
runners. I'm glad I was able to finish this for him tonight. | |
I think I needed the prayer as much as he'll enjoy the result. | |