From the city to the Sabbath

Briefly, briefly, through the mists of the afternoon rain, I can see them all gathered. Etty Hillesum, William Blake, Hadewijch and Meister Eikhart, Lao-Tzu and Chuang Tzu, Changing Woman and Jesus. Just now it's Etty who reaches out from that invisible place within. "You too" she whispers; "You are one of us." Her words frighten me, have always frightened me, exhilirated as I am with the possibilities that beckon. I can see her radiant standing next to St. Benedict and -who knows? Jalalludin Rumi and Henry Thoreau. they reach out throug her, seeking to claim me, to pull me in from this warm home, from this most livable of all American cities, from this richest of all earth's countries, even from the great globe itself. I know she wants to set me wandering. Homeless, maginalized, mad with a clarity that seeks tp burn through the dark cities of this world. Mad to reveal the glory within, she reaches out to me mark me. She covers my forehead with a cross of ash.

-From Work and the Life of the Spirit anthology