Sacramental Language

I dedicate this little book to the mountain

that ever visits my window.

Sometimes the sun sears it, Sometimes the sun caresses it.

Often the rain scourges it.

Now and then the snow gently envelops it.

I have never heard the mountain complain about

the heat of the cold.

It has never charged anything for its majestic beauty.

It has never even asked for thanks.

It simply gives of itself free of charge.

It is no less majestic when the sun caresses it

thank when the wind lashes it.

It does not care or get upset if people scrutinize it or climb it.

The mountain is like God.

It supports everything, endures everything,

welcomes and shelters everything.

God behaves in the same way.

That is why the mountain is a sacrament of God,

revealing, reminding, pointing to, sending us

back to.

Because the mountian is like that

I gratefully dedicate this book to it.

This book attempts to speak the sacramental language

that the mountain does not speak but - far more important - is.

Leonardo Boff Dedication

The above is saving me and has saved me many times. There was a time in divinity school when I went through a dark time and it was not so much a depression or desperation as a wilderness. I knew with my whole heart in its midst that there was a sacramental belovedness which triumphed over despair, a wisdom which integrated all dualities. It is one thing to know this and another to “achieve” this state. The more I aspired to the stillness which radiated glory, the more I remained in the wilderness. Prayer helped. Love helped. Music helped. But one day my dear friend Stephen pointed me to this tiny book by Leonardo Boff: Sacraments of Life, Life of Sacraments. It took me weeks to get beyond the dedication: The Mountain. Eloquent, simple, clear, strong, courageous. The Mountain.

And so I began to play with it and transpose the Human with Mountain. It was uncomfortable and yet it fit. While we speak when the mountain does not, we are also called to simply be the sacraments of grace, the images of God, which we have been created to be. I now aspire to be that human who is “revealing, reminding, pointing to sending us back to.” Back to the One who is merciful, just, and kind. 

Back to our true selves.