An excerpt from John Main OSB, “Stability” in The Hunger for Depth and Meaning, ed. Peter Ng (Singapore: Medio Media, 2007), 151.
We live in a world that makes great demands on most of us. [S]tress and strain take their toll on so many. . . . In [his] Rule, St Benedict offers stability as one of the principal objectives [of life]. To be stable we need to be sure of ourselves. We need to be sure, confident, that we would not be blown away by the first storm winds that come up. [. . . .]
Meditation is a way to this stability, the stability that is the reality of our own being. Saying the mantra is like dropping the anchor, anchoring yourself in the depths of your own being. [ . . . .] [R]eal stability for each of us can only come when we are firmly anchored in God. The extraordinary discovery for us to make is that once we are anchored in our true selves, we are anchored in God. [A]t the same time, we discover our own fragility; we can so easily be tossed around by the storms of life. But also at the same time we discover our own extraordinary potential: to be one with the energy of God, with the power to expand our lives ourselves, into generosity, into love, into life, into eternal life, which is to say limitless life.
After meditation: “blessing the boats” by Lucille Clifton in POETRY OF PRESENCE, ed. Phyllis Cole-Dai and Ruby Wilson (West Hartford: Grayson, 2017), p. 198.
blessing the boats
(at St. Mary’s)
may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that
