This is my Wishing Rock.
It comes from the shore of Lake Michigan and was given to me years ago. I was trying to remember exactly, but I my memory fails me. . . I’ve had it since 2011 or 2012. Somewhere in there. When the weather is warm, it typically sits on my dresser (because I’m not wearing pockets) but during the fall, winter, and spring, it usually rides around inside my pocket. As you can imagine, it’s gone a lot of places.
It’s a Wishing Rock because it has a full band around it. There are lots of traditions with rocks like these, but you can hold such a rock and think about what you most wish. Perhaps deeper, you can hope for what you most dream.
I’ve been thinking about this again this morning, in part, because it’s going back in my pocket. More significantly though, I’m thinking about the wishes and dreams we carry. Sometimes, they are ripe with possibility. Sometimes, they are weighed down with the reality of unlikelihood. But are these ever the primary or final story — that is, simply whether they are possible or not possible? No, there is more than this.
Between those brackets of assumed outcomes (whether reality or our own perception) there are so many stories of what is possible. And if we want to see a wish or dream come to fruition, whether personal, for our communities, or for our world, we have to lean in its direction. We have to say ‘yes’ to it again and again. (After all, doesn’t it keep showing up in our consciousness again and again?)
To put it another way, we have to be a part of the very prayers we make.
So what is your
wish?
dream?
prayer?
How can you take even just one initial step, leaning into its direction?
Smuggling Grace 