My Circus Train and other Stories and Reflections from Sermons
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A few years ago on retreat at a monastery in Chicago, I walked over to the Lincoln Park Zoo for a few hours and learned something pretty profound about grace, watching an orangutan. He was pounding on a door, making a great racket trying to get someone’s attention to give him his dinner – and they already had! It was right there and he just hadn’t seen it. Sometimes we don’t realize how much grace God is showering down upon us because we’ve been so busy asking for it, and we didn’t realize it was already there. And this years I watched a beautiful gesture of love, as a huge adult gorilla leaned way down over a ledge and extended his hand to a little toddler gorilla who was feeling very sad and displaced and left out. The little one had kind of shuffled over to sit under a ledge by himself, because there was a new baby gorilla who was taking everyone’s attention – the people’s and the other gorilla’s, but this big adult gorilla moved over to the ledge and reached down, and the little one reached up when he saw his hand. And then, this big gorilla very gently pulled him up and kind of patted him on the head, and gave him an apple that he had been eating. And he was transformed – that little one was transformed – you could see it! He was changed by a very real act of love. And I think I will always remember the beautiful symbolism of that big hand reaching down to the little one, and lifting him up, and taking the initiative to show him that he was loved, and not forgotten.
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About the Book
As I go on in this life, a verse from Psalm 16 is my story: “You will show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy.” That path has taken me on adventures wanted and unwanted, and led to dreams that came true and dreams that died along the way. That is my story so far. I’ve come to know that each of us is a story and how we tell our story makes a difference as we walk through this world. We all have broken pieces of ourselves that we’ve left along the path, but we can decide whether to pick them up and put them together in a new way and go on, or we can go on with the broken pieces hurting us with every step. That’s our choice, and with the help of God and companions along the way, the grace and fullness of healing and joy can come.
About the Author
Jan Lee Walker is an Episcopal priest and spiritual director who has served in parish, hospital and hospice ministry for over 35 years. She is a mother and grandmother, and lives with her two Scotties in Richmond, Virginia. She is an artist and writer of poems and loves her garden,filled with countless varieties of hostas, blooming pants and bushes. She is a consummate feeder of the great variety of birds appearing at her bird feeders, and also the acrobatic squirrels who are not daunted by any supposed squirrel-proof feeders. She has a deep interest in her family genealogy and has discovered many long ago relatives from very far back - from England, Ireland and Germany - who settled here, and had interesting lives, occupations and histories. She wishes that she could have known them all, and listened to their stories.