My latest piece at Patheos talks about what is borne is from fallow fields and quiet seasons. Here's an excerpt... "On Bended Knee."
O
come, let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the LORD, our
Maker!
(Psalm
95: 6)
To kneel before God is a blessed thing. We are the only
creatures who roam the earth with a free will… and the only ones with the
freedom to give homage by kneeling to the One Who is worthy of it.
Of course, I’ve struck kneeling postures for many reasons besides
prayer. As a wife and mother, I’ve often knelt beside the sickbed of a loved
one… or to pick some thing off the floor… or to clean…
But there is nothing quite as peaceful as kneeling to adore
the One Who made your heart, to sink slowly onto a bended knee before The
Presence.
I’ve written before about the
transforming power of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. For each
person the experience is different and I can barely describe the sacred
intimacies that come from those moments of yielding before the Lord… the One
who made us and loves us with an unending bounty and unfathomable kindness.
To be sure, I’ve learned some things better on my knees than
in other stances. Posture preaches. Gestures have interpretations.
Kneeling makes me smaller. It takes effort. Kneeling is a
yielding out of love. I cannot jump up from that posture, at least at my age I
cannot. I have to stay put at least for a little while.
When I kneel something physical unlocks; the upper and lower
back muscles relax. My quads stretch. The heart rate lowers.
When I kneel, my focus sharpens. I am closer to the ground,
or maybe, I just feel more grounded. I
become aware of the heart in the left center of my chest.
Kneeling is reserved. I use it most when I am with God alone,
and when I am with the Church. For me, kneeling signals prayer. It slows me
down. It opens up a mental space, a zone where I concentrate only on what it in
front of me, and what is within. In a curious paradox, despite the
vulnerability of kneeling, I feel more open than closed when I kneel.
Read the rest.
