I am on retreat at the Immaculata Monastery in Nebraska. This morning I am walking a labyrinth beneath a tree. My feet take little slices out of the great circle, many small crescents that close behind me as I walk.
Labyrinths start the mind working on metaphors. “I have come to God by a winding path.” “God writes straight with crooked lines.”
Another Sister walks it with me, and at times we pass each other on parallel crescents, and we bow to honor Christ in each other.
After a while, my mind stills, and the metaphorical churning stills. I walk, and breathe in grace. I walk, and breathe out peace. God shines through the tree, the stones, my Sister. God is within me. Gloria Deo!
Sister Therese Marie Carson
Therese Marie was born in Detroit, Michigan and spent many years as a microbiologist in Harbor Springs, Michigan before coming to Duluth. She had heard a call to vocation since she was young, and found the courage to surrender to it when her faith in God caught fire and became deep love. She made her First Profession on August 31, 2014, at St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth, Minnesota, and looks forward with joy to becoming a perpetually professed Benedictine. She believes with Albert Einstein that, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.“