For the next seventeen days, home is Tantur Ecumenical Institute.  Arriving in my room yesterday, I read through the informational packet left on the desk.

This was the first page:

Welcome to this holy place.  You are embarking on a holy journey.  We have said many prayers for you as individuals and as a group.  Each of you has your own purpose in coming here.  Each of you has a longing for more of God and less of self and worldly distractions; you want balance, re-creation, and the spiritual energy to be co-creators with the Great  Creator.

Settle in.  Listen.  Pray.  Listen.  Walk.  Listen.  Be still.  Listen.

A great work is about to begin.

And my heart said, “Oh yes, Lord, let it be so.”

When home calls at the end of May, I’ll board the plane eagerly.  But for the next seventeen days, this place will do just fine.

Beneath that portion was a quote:

It is not thou that shapest God;
it is God that shapest thee.
If then thou are the work of God,
await the hand of the Artist
who does all things in due season.
Offer him thy heart, soft and tractable
and keep the form
in which the Artist has fashioned thee.
Let thy clay be moist, lest thou grow hard
and lose the imprint of his fingers. (Saint Irenaeus in the 2nd century)

This I will try.