|
 |
 |
|||||||||||||
|
|
|
[Back to index of May articles] BEARINGS: By Martin L. Smith A recent trip to Morocco was full of wonders. Crossing the Atlas Mountains through the snow-bound passes. Tracing the necklace of oases down the valley of the Draa. Viewing the edge of the Sahara where the road ends south of Zagora. But I also was on a quest that led me to the souk at Essaouira on the old Barbary coast. I needed a rug. And I really mean needed, not just happened to want a decorative souvenir. So the stakes were high, as I sipped the rug merchant's tea, reviewing many possibilities until the one that was meant to be was spread out. Then, of course, the protracted comedy of bargaining until both parties could settle. And now a small kilim Berber rug from a mountain village is glowing on my bedroom floor, an intense ruby red, with patterns of black and saffron. I needed the rug because I have difficulty in settling down to pray. I always have had. Where to put myself? Where to face? How to sit? How to compose myself? When I was young I couldn't get orientated and didn't know how to 'hunker down,' as we say. Then soon after I was ordained, I went on a retreat. It began in a most peculiar way. The leader came to the front of the chapel and took off his shoes-his socks had holes-and unfurled a small rug on the floor. Stepping on to it, he produced a low bench and knelt down, slipping the bench over his ankles and settling back on it. Then he waved some yellowing sheets of paper and announced, "If you want a traditional retreat, I have five addresses here on the vision of Isaiah. Or if you prefer, we could learn to meditate. Which is it going to be?" Alarmed and fascinated, we the retreatants hesitantly agreed to forgo the five addresses and launch into the actual practice of prayer. After that, I accepted the fact that I was prayer-challenged and needed all the help I could get-including a prayer mat. It proved to be the wisest of aids. The prayer rug that is a staple of Islamic and some Eastern traditions is a portable placement on the earth. It demarcates a sacred here and now. It strangely invites us to hunker down. Archimedes asked for a place to stand and a lever long enough in order to move the earth, and his request for a pou sto, a standing place, has become a legendary phrase for our human need to find a place for orienting oneself and taking a stand. If you travel, you can take it with you. Sacred space any nomad can unfurl at any stopping place-those who once traveled by camel in the desert or those like us who crisscross a different kind of desert and end up in the antiseptic rooms of American chain hotels. When I left the monastery, I had little or nothing to take away with me. I set about creating a living space of my own from scratch when I finally bought an apartment, an activity full of charm and pleasure that is at its most intense for those like myself who have lived most of our lives in communal institutions. Visits to Ikea, Eastern Market and Pottery Barn were emotional and spiritual adventures indeed. But in the excitement of putting it all together over many months, I lost touch with my need for an actual placement for prayer, and I made no provision for a proper prayer rug. So now a patch of startling beauty greets me from my floor, made from the wool of sheep that have grazed the pastures of the Atlas, dyed with the stamens of the saffron crocus such as I saw growing in the little fields by mountain streams, and with the bodies of insects that once buzzed around the meadows, and woven by patient fingers to timeless patterns handed on from mother and daughter over the ages. I take off my shoes before stepping on to it, of course. But then it is sacred ground. There is no bush burning, but the colors blaze, and the only power that God actually has is the power of beauty. Only the beauty of God can get us to stop what we are doing and stop what we are becoming while we are doing it. Moses was a very busy man, and only that burning beauty got his attention long enough to stop him in his tracks. My rug is helping God do the same for me. Martin L. Smith is a well-known spiritual writer and priest. He serves on the staff of St. Columba's, D.C. as theologian-in-residence. [Back to index of May articles]
|
|
||||||||||
