nabbed from bostonandrodyke

"For years, I have looked ahead, searching for holy places down the road and trying to reach them as soon as possible. Now I believe instead that this ground is sacred, that wherever I stand at this moment is holy. The women who are my companions have opened my eyes to the holy in the ordinary. Deena Metzger wrote in Heresies I: 'Each day is a tapestry, threads of broccoli, promotion, couches, children, politics, shopping, building, planting, thinking interweave in intimate connection with insistent cycles of birth, existence, and death.' We can become so focused, as I have been, on our accomplishments that we will not even see the holy, sacred, healing grace of God present all around us as we travel. And if we do not stop and look, our woundedness and alienation and fatigue will grow, and we will never be able to hear our own voice. We need to rest and allow our spirits to be healed and made whole along the way, not so that we can do better or travel farther but so that we will make the journey in our own good time. And sometimes we ought to linger, perhaps for a long time, until the beauty of that place has shaped our soul from the inside."

--Judith E. Smith from "This Ground is Holy Ground" in Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life

as found in Jan Richardson's book Sacred Journeys