Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood…
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs…
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.¹

Mary Oliver

A few weeks ago I made an appointment with the Doctor; I had developed a rash around my waist. She told me I had shingles. I blithely inquired as to how that could be since I already had shingles some years back and I understood that a person developed them only once. But yes, we can get them again!

The Doctor works with a therapist who was available to see me there and then. I was reminded yet again that the body knows and she was telling me that all was not well. The Spirit, alive in me, was offering a moment of insight; what was needing attention in my life?

Two experiences came to mind. While painful to have them emerge so clearly in consciousness, I now have this rich vein of past experience to re-visit and integrate more fully into my life. Mysteries, yes.

God shows up in our lives in infinite ways and forms – all we need to do is tune into the Spirit alive in us. As I wrote many years ago, in a poem of my own:

Divine Maestro, your flute is ready
blow, breathe, bestow
your breath in me;
blow surely and strong
freeing me of those fetters which tie me still;
I want to sing, harmonize, make music;
birth in me anew, your rhythm and tune;
breath of God, recreate me and transform me
at every moment into that disposition of
surrendering myself into your hands;
to render a melody that is new and full of You!