At least once a month, I visit the Carondolet Center on the campus of the College of St. Catherine. I go there to visit with a saint of woman who is my spiritual director, a person who sits with me and listens me into understanding how the Divine is showing up in the cracks and crevices of my life. It is a great gift to be listened to, to be asked just the right questions that help me piece together this thing we call a spiritual life. In addition to enjoying the company of this blessed woman, I love going into the building itself, a building that has been home to an order of religious sisters over many years. Walking on the shiny marble floors, noticing the worn places grooved and hallowed by countless steps taken in service and prayer, grounds me and calms me. It is pure gift.

I visited this campus yesterday and as I was leaving I came head to head with an amazing sight. I had just gotten in my car and was about to pull out of my parking spot when straight ahead of me, coming right at me, I saw an enormous forklift…..carrying a bridge. It was a lovely bridge, whose structure was of an arts & crafts design, all sleek and geometrical lines. The forklift was moving slowly holding this bridge about 15-20 feet in the air. I sat in my car watching this bridge which was not connected on either side as it inched along to what would, I hope, be its eventual home.

Something about this sight really reached out and grabbed me. It was almost too much metaphor to take in! I thought of all the folks I know who are trying to make connections in their lives. Connection in relationships, their work, the ways they see and understand the world. Connections in their experience, the politics of our time, the movement or relevancy of our faith communities. In some way we are all in the business of going from one thing to another and bridges are the way we do this important and often difficult work.

Witnessing this bridge in the air was an act of seeing something not yet in place. This wooden bow was being carried about, high off the ground,within view but unreachable. It had the form of a structure that would connect one path to another but was, as yet, not in its proper landscape. It had been built but was not yet ready to fulfill its function. But it was on its way. It was a fascinating experience and one I have puzzled over off and on since seeing it.

And so for all of us who are searching to make the important connections in our lives, who are looking for the proper bridge that will allow us to cross over to the what next, I offer this image of the bridge in the air. This experience of being confronted by this beautiful structure yet to find its home, yet to do its work, gave me hope. Hope that what needs to be built has been. Hope that what needs to be present to make the important, longed-for connections may be in the air but they are on their way. Hope that something larger and more powerful than any of us is moving with slow, purposeful intention toward the place where a bridge can be placed that will make all the difference.

May each of us find the bridges we need this day. May each of us have the patience and courage to look for the bridges that might be just in front of us waiting to be lowered into place. Once in place, may we each have the courage to take the first step toward whatever connections await.