This has been holy time. I mean that not in an overly pious way, but rather to suggest that in carving out space in our lives to focus so wholly on our daughters’ origins, we have reoriented our daily existence around the great desire to practice love as a family, and thereby live out our vocations.
In preparing for the trip, we all agreed that there would be highs and lows, times of exhilaration and times of stress. All of these times, good and bad, would knit our family relationships, so that even the most insignificant or most difficult experiences might yield some fruit. Yesterday, for example, we met some of the earliest caregivers of one daughter. The experience ranks as one of my life’s high points, seeing the love and tenderness that one ayi (“auntie”) in particular showed for her, now ten years removed from my daughter’s life there. Today, a comparatively slow day, was no less blessed, though, because of the two hours of charades that we four played in the hotel room while the weather was bad.
So now I ask myself: why don’t we live like this every day? Why can’t we bring the same attentiveness to highs and lows, with an eye to the big picture, the unfolding life for which God has created us? Is not every day a part of the life of pilgrimage? Cannot all our life’s moments, from the most mundane to the most sublime, be part of that life of grace? Surely the answer is yes, and surely in our prayer we allow God to remind us of that grace.
Photo of the Chartres Cathedral labyrinth courtesy of giopuo under Creative Commons license.