today i begin two months extended study leave. in the team i am in we are able to take that every 4 or 5 years. last time i took it was just before lockdown due to covid. i was due to visit vietnam, korea, nepal but that all became impossible. so i ended up with time to write pioneer practice.

this time round i head off to visit the usa next monday to visit friends in street psalms, parish collective and say hi to some friends in those locales – looking forward to catching up with karen ward and steve bevans. then i plan to think about how best to support the community of pioneers that has emerged over that last twenty years or so – what’s the next chapter? and i’ll be doing some writing.

in my last team meeting a blessing and a prayer were shared for me which i was reading as i step into this change of pace today…

For The Traveller by John O Donahue

Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.
 
New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.
 
When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:
 
How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.
 
When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.
 
A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.
 
May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.
 
May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.

And secondly this is a prayer from the wonderful collection liturgies from below

And now even as you step out into the Empire
Be not of this structure but be
The light that liberates
The salt that savours
The hand that heals
The water that washes
Until all have access
To God’s good and beautiful creation
Amen