Amongst the ever changing furniture at Dawsonwood Cottage is a piece more often found in a chapel. A Prie Dieu. It stands in the corner of my room, inviting me to prayer.
This morning at five, I awoke, still exhausted from an all-nighter of carpet cleaning and present wrapping the previous day. I looked at the Prie Dieu and knelt in my heart and felt Divine Love cradle me. Mentally I wrestled against an urge to 'task' my devotional life. Love rocked me gently, soothing my compulsions. I slept.
The Prie Dieu was my anniversary present this year. The most unusual present received this side of a monastery, you think? Our relationship is something reminicent of Abelard and Eloise. We courted by snail mail in the days before text messaging and email. Some of you will recall that we still do write letters to one another (click on title or link for my Anniversary letter to Rob).
http://dawsonwood.blogspot.com/20052005_10_01 dawsonwood archive.html
Rob, showing his early theological bent, wrote me poems in the style of John Donne, his favourite poet. I must admit to being mystified quite often by Rob's poetry, mixing as it did, human and divine love in a tight archaic form. Being mystified, I find, is often as good as understanding. I can't remember what I wrote, but I don't think I was funny then, and those priceless letters were tossed in a fit of purging during one of our many moves. We were both serious lovers.
So, this morning, the Prie Dieu stands as symbol of relationship, human and Divine. Place of comfort and devotion. Place of Love. Place of Rest.
Peace to you all and Rest.
4 comments:
you were in my heart and soul all day yesterday - i was going to email you this a.m. to find out why. glad you are finding peace and rest!
beautiful love, thank you for sharing!
I was thinking of you this morning, and ready to check on you by email, and here you are.
Prie Dieu...I saw one of these in the house of a woman I do not know well and I have secretly wanted one since then, even though that was the first time I'd ever seen or heard of it. So I am glad to see another one and to read a little more about it.
"I don't think I was funny then"...perhaps it is only after we have shed the earnestness of the young can we be funny?? Or perahps you were funny then, but in a different way??
And for some reason, I love this, "being mystified. I find, is often as good as understanding".
I am so glad to read you this morning, Peace to you too, and Rest.
Ummm - rest and peace comes through your words, and your wisdom. Thank you Connie for this.
How beautiful and I love the cords of love that draw things together.
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