"Teach me now, the ways of beauty."

This, a lyric from a song I wrote connected like lightning to a path  I walk often filled with all kinds of unexpected treasures and revelations!

This path is no ordinary path, although some may think so, as it connects from point "A" to point "B". 

Situated in the middle of Aquinas campus, this small wooded path features the stations of The Cross, which depicts the final days before Christ's death for humanity, the condemnation he experienced on the journey to the cross to the tomb. 

Made by boy scouts, there are wooden boxes with carved images of each station of the cross. For those that are unfamiliar, the stations are these: Jesus is condemned to death, He carries the cross, falls fore the first time, meets his mother, Simon helps Jesus carry the cross, Veronica wipes the face of Jesus, Jesus falls for the second time, Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem, Jesus falls for a third time, He is then stripped of his garments, Jesus is nailed to the cross, He is removed from the cross and then laid into the tomb.

As I walk this path, there are two missing stations that were either destroyed or taken. The jagged posts have remained there for years, and have never been replaced. These missing stations are when Simon is moved by Mercy and helps Jesus carry the cross. The other missing station is where Veronica is moved by compassion and wipes Jesus' bloody and sweaty face with her veil. 

Next to the missing station of Veronica and Jesus, is a campus help box that is also knocked down, and out of service and has laid helpless with assistance for years. It is rusting, and some people even scratched out the word "assistance" to say "ass stance". 

Across from this is a pipe labled "clean sewer line." What does that mean? I don't know.

Then, as you walk just a bit further, there is a tree which happens to have a heart formed at it's root base. The tree of Life, symbolic in the midst of what is missing.

I started connecting all this beauty and chaos and symbolism, and couldn't help but feel moved by the call for each of us to be what shows up in compassion and mercy. The missing stations destroyed along the path of Faith, pain, belief, doubt, hope, and love. 

We get to show up where words and symbols have left, but the Gift Christ has left us with, the gift of the Holy Spirit remains in each and every one of us. 

In these crazy times, we are called even deeper, to be moved into action to reach across to each and every person in mercy and compassion. To offer help when "Ass Stance" the help assistance we thought we could receive or that many do not have access to, we offer what we can in help. Instead of staring at "clean sewer lines" as we wade through heaviness, we get to walk together, to meet in Holiness, pressing into the roots of our origin of Love. The gift that Christ has called each of us to be. 

Here are the lyrics to the song, Trinity I wrote. May the simple prayer within it, "Teach me now, the ways of your beauty" resound in your spirit as it does in mine.

Trinity

As I walk, this toilsome road

Seeking steps and paths of truth

guiding through the storms and light

through the desert, through the night

Praise, praise, the Father praise the Son, 

Now praise, the Spirit, three in One

My steps were never alone as I walked

But aligned with The Trinity

I was lost, but now am found

Seeking me, You held me close

Wrapped in Wholly Righteousness

Teach me now, the ways of Your Beauty

Praise, praise the Father, praise The Son,

Now praise the Spirit, three in One

My steps were never alone as I walked

But aligned with The Trinity