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Cheval Blanc |
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I've been haunted lately by memories of Cluny, France, in 2003. He was a stranger studying antique book covers through the glass window of a closed bookstore. He turned and invited me to join him for dinner at a nearby restaurant, Cheval Blanc. I soon recognized him, Bill, as a fellow pilgrim on our flight from the U.S. That was the beginning of our romance, our marriage, and our continued pilgrimage in discipleship together to this day.
Cheval Blanc (Fr: White Horse) left lingering memories of white horses in statuary, murals, and embedded in art. It was a comfortable restaurant setting because horses were familiar. Raising and showing horses was a huge chunk of my history on the ranch. I wondered, even then in Cluny, how was it that I was led to a comfortable setting where I met my future husband.
Now, 8 years later, Bill and I sign up for the Art Deco room in a nearby Inn to celebrate a relaxed anniversary weekend. How shocked we were to walk into the room and see French art! A mural of a white horse over the bed and a sign "CHEVAL" over the doorway! I was lucky to be led to such a lovely, comfortable place. 
While I will not try to explain the phenomenon -- it might be coincidence, reticular formation, morphic resonance -- who knows! I will, though, suggest that there are imprints in our souls which influence certain happenings in our lives. This Cheval Blanc happening causes me to ask if God has led me to signs and wonders that I didn't recognize? led me to the cries of my hurting brothers and sisters that I didn't hear? led me to graced moments that I didn't know? I am lucky to be led . . . O God, open my awareness more fully and lead me more closely to you.
- Jan
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How Way Leads on to Way --by Bill
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
- Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"
Sometimes I wonder about the various "roads not taken" in my life. For the moment, let me simply celebrate the roads taken - the wandering path of choice and chance and grace that has somehow led me where I am.
Last weekend, Jan and I attended a refreshing retreat, led by Laura Swan, with the Benedictine Sisters and our fellow Oblates of St. Scholastica Monastery in Boerne, Texas. How did I get there? It all began with a coffee-break conversation in Massachusetts in 1993. That "chance" conversation led to my taking a position as interim pastor in Rhode Island, which led, in turn, to the first of several visits to Weston Priory in Vermont, where I was welcomed by a Benedictine community. The music of Weston Priory led me to the music of Taizé, which led me to visit Taizé, France, where Jan and I met, which led me to Texas and to affiliation with another Benedictine community.
Who knew? Who could possibly have known that a brief chat in Massachusetts would lead to Rhode Island and Vermont, to France and to Texas? Yet somehow, by God's grace, it did.
Oh yes, it would be possible to look back on this meandering path and "see nothing else but blind chance and human decision."* Even so, I would be grateful for the wonder of how it all happened. In faith, I find a direction for my gratitude: In the words of Jean-Pierre de Caussade, "Are not all times and all events the successive results of [God's] grace, pouring itself forth on all instants of time, filling them and sanctifying them?"*
Thanks be to God, who has accompanied me through each instant of time, each step of the way.
*Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence, as quoted in The HarperCollins Book of Prayers (1993), pp. 91-92. |
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