A Love Prayer Practice

A LOVE PRAYER PRACTICE

By Marcella Kraybill-Greggo

“From horizon to endless horizon, there is only love; only love”  

- Julian of Norwich, in her book The Showings

When My mom suffered a fatal brain bleed, it opened me up in ways that were unexpected. I was deeply disoriented. In the days immediately following her death on January 3, 2023, all I could feel was VASTNESS. An extensive feeling of vastness. So much so that it was disorienting.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love vastness. And I, like many of you, regularly VISIT vastness in my time of prayer. But to LIVE in vastness is disorienting. In the Wisdom community we say “Find your Feet.” In this season, I didn’t even have feet.  In this realm of vastness, no ‘feet’ could be found. I shared this with a dear Wisdom friend, this feeling of being completely unmoored and disoriented in VASTNESS. Together we came up with the image of hammocking in vastness. Nothing to do, but be present and hammock. Nothing to change, but to simply sense myself as grounded and secure in a hammock, even while feeling utterly suspended. This changed everything. This settled my nervous system. And, in that moment I was able to recall the words of Julian of Norwich that I had read just that morning, that now were coming to meet me here… suspended …suspended in Love, and I could receive them in a new form:

Julian of Norwich says “From horizon to endless horizon, there is only love; only love.” That was the sensation I was finally able to recognize, as I came into the felt sense of the safety of being hammocked. That was the feeling of this vastness. UTTER LOVE. Suspended in only LOVE. In this vastness -- Only Love.  Safe. Held. ONLY LOVE.

Friends, when have you too perhaps felt ‘utterly suspended in love?’ Allow a gentle moment of reflection.

And, what might that experience feel like even today…to literally pause, take a few deep breathes…and physically LEAN BACK in your chair, as if you are LEANING INTO LOVE. Allow yourself to imagine being ‘hammocked in love’. Then gently repeat this line from Julian of Norwich…perhaps three times…

“From horizon to endless horizon, there is only love; only love.”

“From horizon to endless horizon, there is only love; only love.”

“From horizon to endless horizon, there is only love; only love.”

See what you notice…

       Let this message wash over you tenderly….see if it wants to settle something within you.

Then I invite you to take this TRUTH into your day…let it nourish you deeply.