Patience and perseverence

And so it goes.  The beauty and immediacy of the project have been on hold.  I must wait.  The time is incubating to move forward, but the door has yet to be opened.
I have now spoken to Father Dan, who has given me hope, although as with all things it must be approached the right way.  The statue that is currently in the location that I am proposing was gifted, and would need to find a rightful new and worthy place to be housed.  Or as Father Paul had suggested, perhaps we could also find another spot for the icon.  I am fully convinced that Our Lady wants to be in the specific spot I have proposed in the main church.  Most other places are transitory spaces, which people walk through and would not necessarily stop to meditate with an icon, or at least to allow her to speak in her radiance to the heart.  So it goes.  I will try to remain open and not lose hope.
So within these parameters awaits a desire to become, to incarnate, to make flesh with line and color and brush. I will be patient, but I am accountable for carrying through that which was placed on my heart.

And I meditate upon the fields of St. Joseph's Abbey--a Trappist monastery in Spencer, Mass., where I recently had a most beautiful weekend retreat of silence and prayerful meditation. There was a sense of spiritual cleansing even in the trees.  The soil too giving praise to God.  And the monks singing in Gregorian Chant the Beauty of the Lord.  Be still.  Wait.  Pray.