by Rose Mary Dougherty

It was years ago that I first heard these words of Meister Eckhart. I'm sure they must have been said within the context of our images of God and what we cling to in place of God. But the context must have escaped me then as it does now. What I heard were the words, and I was confused, somewhat frightened. Not seeing the words, I was unaware that the second "god" was in all in lower case. I missed the point of the prayer. Yet I respected Meister Eckhart and wanted to understand what he was saying, perhaps even pray his prayer. But I couldn't. God was all I had, and I'd staked my life on God, the only reason why my choice of vocation as vowed religious made sense. Why rid me of God? The closest I could come for myself was, "I pray God rid me of me." I was the problem, not God.

It seems that God heard the prayer that I was able to pray, though not in the way I expected. I had had an image of God charging through my soul, something like the Maid Brigade, whisking away all the cobwebs of those faults I had come to abhor. But it didn't happen that way. Little by little, life's circumstances and grace chipped away, not at me, but at the many images I had claimed as me. Sometimes I was amazed by glimpses into inner beauty that I hadn't realized were part of me. At other times I was discomforted when I saw hitherto unknown areas of my own brokenness that inflicted so much pain on others. It seemed as if everything I thought I knew about myself was called into question.

Everything I thought I knew about God was being called into question, also. The felt experience I had come to rely on to tell me who God was just wasn't available. Up to this point God, like myself, had been reasonably predictable and easy to define. Now there were no certainties accessible to me, except that, even as I felt the ground of my interior life quaking beneath me, there was some knowing that God was--though I couldn't define or even describe the God who was.

Times of spiritual sharing were extremely difficult. There wasn't much I could talk about, and sometimes I got bored, annoyed, even jealous hearing others talk about their experience. I was uncomfortable leading groups or sitting in staff meetings where we talked about the assumptions underlying what we did in groups. One part of me felt fraudulent, waiting to be discovered. Another part felt more authentic than ever. In this part of me, I heard the word, "Trust."

It was into this heart scenario that the prayer of Meister Eckhart came again. The words leapt out at me from an article I was reading. I saw the prayer as it was meant to be prayed: "I pray God rid me of god."  I didn't need to think about the words this time. My experience had been preparing me to recognize their truth. They made heart sense to me. Immediately the fraudulent feeling part of me began its protest, though faintly and unconvincingly: "Watch out, you're rationalizing or spiritualizing." At the same time, however, the place of authenticity was savoring the words, " Behold, I am doing something new. Do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:19)

God continues to rid me of god and of self. Often I do not perceive at the time what is going on. Sometimes I latch on to images of God or myself in relation to God. I try to imagine what God might be up to and then I set out to make what I imagine happen. At some point God breaks through once again in some new and surprising way and I am left realizing how little I know about much of anything. Such was the case through this summer and early fall.

September was to be a sabbatical month for me. During the summer I prayed about what the time might be like, what I wanted it to be. I knew that I wanted to do some reflection and reading around discernment, and some paying attention to my own process of knowing, hoping that this work would eventually find its way into my writing and teaching. Mostly I wanted it to find its way into my being. My initial prayer was that  I could be open to whatever might be in the offing for me and that I might return home more deeply grounded in God. That prayer was gentle yet consistent  in me.

The month before I left, someone showed me a photo he had taken, I think in the California Big Sur. It was the picture of a tree standing alone in the center of a cliff which overhung the ocean. That photo engraved itself in my heart. What struck me was the solitary stance of the tree, its rootedness and strength, and its raw exposure to the buffeting of the elements. I saw myself in solitude like the tree, with God as my grounding, my strength, and my buffeter. The photo became an image of what I thought my time might be. What had once been a gentle yearning in me now became intense prayer as I entered the drama of readying myself for a month of solitude on a farm on the edge of the ocean in Nova Scotia.

Only my first day alone matched my expectation of what the month might be about. On that day, even the weather, with its heavy rain and gusty winds, was typical of what I had been told I might expect that time of year. As I braced myself for a month of similar experience, I found myself praying, "Well, God, it's just the two of us. I hope we can survive this together." I must have known we could survive because I gave myself easily to sleep that night.

The next morning I awoke to sunshine and a warmer temperature, though the lingering presence of the storm was evident as I walked the beach. When I returned home, I tried to pray with the image of the tree on the cliff. I felt drawn to being the tree, rooted in God, willing to be buffeted by God. Somewhere during the quiet of that time, I heard a tapping sound. I looked around to find its source and there sat Albert, the resident farm rooster, sitting in the flower box outside the window. I burst out laughing and watched him for a few minutes and then said to myself, "I have work to do." But Albert was persistent and so was God. Each time I tried to get too serious or became too engrossed in what I thought I should be doing, Albert would appear, sometimes at the window, sometimes at the door, pecking until I answered. Each time I was taken by surprise; each time I was filled with delight.

And so the month went:  little that I expected but everything that I needed. I can't name what happened during that time, or even what I did, but I sense the gift of it all deep inside me. Albert has become a God symbol for me. Even now the memory of his presence invites me to let go of my expectations, to let God be God and tell me who I am. I continue to pray, "God rid me of god; rid me of me."