When we need the Cocoon the Most

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In times like these….the tempest roars…what could we need more than a cocoon?  Don't we long to be wrapped in warm transformative safety?  It has to be re-woven with steely silken Holy Spirit threads…EVERY day. But as I try to do the work of putting myself in stillness long enough for the Spirit to thread…it surrounds me.

Even when I don’t realize it. Even when I don’t recognize that Jesus is here in the dirt with me, fighting my battle, going ahead of me,  frustrating my enemies, asking where are my accusers now?, holding all things scary and fearful,  and incubating in the dark what his abundance has planned for me….all while I wait wrapped in his Kingdom Cocoon.

Night Prayers

In times like these…when you hunger for the cocoon…the work looks like “Night Prayers”:

“St. Teresa pointed out that the door of entry to the soul is prayer and reflection. Night prayers, more than any others, seem to carry us over the portal. A night prayer is one said against a backdrop of darkness or beneath the shadow of pain.” (Kidd, 1999,  P. 55)

Weaving an Environment of Prayer

“Making a cocoon and the transformation that goes on inside it involves weaving an environment of prayer, but not the sort of prayer we usually think of. No, this is something mysteriously different. This prayer isn’t about talking and doing and thinking. It’s about postures. Postures of the spirit. It’s turning oneself upside down so that everything is emptied out and God can flow in It’s curling up in the fogged spaces of the listening heart, sinking into solitude, wrapping the soul around some little flame of hope that God has ignited. It’s sitting on the window sill of the heart, still and watching.” P. 126


Lord, as we are turned upside down on the inside and outside, as we watch others, as we watch the storm around us, the storm that may be far from us but we see the worst happen, as we watch the storm that brews inside like a boiling pot of stormy weather…lead us to the high place . Lead us to the peace that is beyond resolution, that is beyond outcome, that is beyond disappointment….lead us to the Promise of the Presence that makes all well. Truly. Jesus, help us wait well.

Psalm 61
Hear me, O God, when I cry;
    listen to my prayer.
2 You are the One I will call when pushed to the edge,
    when my heart is faint.
    Shoulder me to the rock above me.
3 For You are my protection,
    an impenetrable fortress from my enemies.
4 Let me live in Your sanctuary forever;
    let me find safety in the shadow of Your wings

Where do we start?  We need a spiritual cremaster. What in the world is that?  I will tell you soon….stay tuned. 

You. Are. Loved. 


Kidd, Sue. 1990. When the Heart Waits. Harper Collins. New York, New York. 


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