Tending the Spaces

by Judy Bevilacqua

“Stir up in me the flame of love, O all-consuming fire...

Stir up in me the flame of love, O all-consuming fire...”

For over a year, I have been praying these lines as I use my Anglican rosary. That I’ve come to use and love a rosary at all, is such mystery to me. But here I am, letting my fingers do the walking! I wasn’t raised in a tradition that used rosaries. In fact they were a source of silent scorn: a superstitious incantation, a counting device for quantity not quality, a crutch for those who didn’t know how to pray. I’ve learned a lot since then, mostly about myself. I’ve swallowed a lot of deep-dish humble pie. And I now find these same beads a source of comfort and mobility. Especially when I am “prayer-alyzed” -- you know, experiencing the occasional spiritual inertia. The rosary also quiets and tames my inner world when my outer world is yelling and distracting me, which is fairly often.

It all started when I found a small sack on a table at church. It contained a rosary made of humble knotted black string and a folded prayer to use. It was from Africa, and it was free! With such low risk, it was a perfect way to experience my first Anglican rosary. I loved it. My husband loved it. We eventually took our worn “string-beads” to a bead shop in Sellwood and conscripted the owner to make us two Anglican rosaries. She was fascinated! We carefully selected each bead. Later, foraging at Goodwill turned up two cool wooden boxes to store them in. Oh, how we love paraphernalia! But I am way off-subject. I wanted to talk about the prayer, not about the vehicle of prayer... though it is a fine vehicle!

That little folded up verse that came with my African beads, has remained my favorite. It is called A Transfiguration Prayer. “Stir up in me the flame of love, O all-consuming fire...” Over every smooth sphere between the cruciform beads, I pray that prayer. Over each of the 28 days of the weeks beads... my inner voice, mumbling like river water over stones, is carried in silent pilgrimage, more a passenger than a prayer.

“Stir up in me the flame of love, O all-consuming fire” – here is the inexhaustible fuel to discover God as the source of all creative energy. The dunamis – power. He is heat and light. How eagerly I take refuge in the warmth of His comfort. But I also must endure the dangerous and exciting process of Hisrefining fire: watching my own impurities surface, as He turns up the heat in my life. I confess, I sometimes become a “firefighter,” both praying for AND resisting this summons to be made purer, more integrated, more grateful, less acquisitive. What a mystery is fire... an inextinguishable, mesmerizing, burning bush mystery!

On a cold, snowy day last January, I attended a day retreat. The retreatants were all asked to meditate on a poem by Judy Sorum Brown, called Fire. Its opening lines opened my eyes:

What makes a fire burn

Is space between the logs,

A breathing space.

Too much of a good thing,

Too many logs

Packed in too tight

Can douse the flames

Almost as surely

As a pail of water would.

So building fires

Requires attention

to the spaces in between,

As much as to the wood...

Creating space - breathing places. This revealed to me my integral part in the refining process. I need to find and tend the spaces. To move aside things in my life which are packed too tight. To simplymake room for silence, for rest, for meditation and the breathing rhythms of my rosary prayer. I cannotsanctify myself, but if I tend my spaces... the flame of God’s love will do the rest: “stir up in me the flame of love, O all-consuming fire…” Amen.

(Photo courtesy of www.freefoto.com.)