Many Tasks, The Same Direction
T HIS WINTER, MY WORKLOAD OVERWHELMED ME FOR A WHILE. Complaining to a friend, I described it like jumping between different railroad tracks in a busy train yard. My attention shifted quickly from one task to another as I tried to keep everything moving. I couldn’t. I forgot things. I missed appointments. My inner life was full of steam and metallic screeching, and I was not enjoying the commotion.
Thankfully, now things are moving with more grace and ease. A new image rose, healthier and surprisingly liberating. The image supported a spiritual shift that may be useful to others in a world gone insane, so I’ll share the story.
It’s been a year and a half since I took on the role of Executive Director of Good News Associates. I’ve learned new skills and grown in leadership. Personal ministry efforts continue, with travel, teaching, and spiritual accompaniment in varied contexts. Without recognizing what was building, I’ve ended up meeting monthly via Zoom with up to forty people in small groups or individual spiritual direction sessions. It’s true, there’s a lot to track!
I’m pretty clear that all these tasks are mine to do, in addition to being a loving partner and supportive mom, plus companioning my aging mother. How to integrate everything with grace was not so clear.
After hearing about the train track mess, my friend offered prayer. She’s wise and practiced in spiritual accompaniment. To visualize her hope for me, she suggested a new image, one that had deep meaning for my Alaskan roots—a braided river. In the 100-mile wide valley where I was born and lived into my 40’s, the Tanana River rolls down from mountain glaciers in dozens of meandering channels. My friend saw need for more “flow” in my work, nothing tangled or stuck, while she remembered how the vast Alaskan landscape moves me to awe and praise.
Images in prayer often express more than words. But they might not be visual. Images may be sensed in sound or song, gesture or movement. In my own experience as well as with people I’ve accompanied in spiritual direction, many find images layered with meaning, like dreams. They illuminate the obvious but still surprise us with something new. Sometimes an image stirs a kind of holy imagination— when head, heart and senses all engage in relationship with the Holy. Asking a few gentle, curious questions helps images come alive for each person in unique ways. It’s part of how the Spirit meets us in the particulars of our own situations and needs. Instead of learning from stories or teachings, images help us learn from the God of our hearts. Images can wake us up and change us in ways we only dreamed possible.
If you’ve never prayed with images before, maybe you’ll feel a Holy invitation to try. Especially if you’re feeling stuck, as I was with tangled tracks, ask in prayer if there’s another representation that might be more Life-giving. If something comes, hold it gently, without picking it apart. See how your emotions or thoughts shift with a new perspective on the situation. A prayer-image worthy of trust will draw you toward God. You’ll recognize something of the reliable fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control (Galatians 5).
As I’ve reflected on the braided river, I appreciate how water images are especially profound. Humans are half water. Oceans cover most of the earth. I’ve been stirred by Denise Levertov’s poetry describing God’s mercy like an endless waterfall. In Hebrew and Chrisitan scriptures, water cleanses or flows and things change for the good: The faithful are promised streams in the desert (Isaiah 44:3); the Christ-spirit bubbles like a spring within us (John 7: 38-39); the River of Life flows past the throne of God (Revelations 22:1).
Over several months, my relationship to the braided river has unfolded with grace. I unearthed a photo I took from a plane in 2017 (above). The Tanana was miles wide, glittering in the sun from 25 or 30,000 feet. I spent time with the image in prayer during an exercise with my spiritual directors’ reflection group. The Spirit prompted me toward a more spacious perspective on my many tasks. I realized that the mud under my feet in any given moment is never the whole story, no matter how messy and unpleasant it feels. When I can’t see the other channels of the river, they still flow alongside, and generally in the same direction.
In the days that followed that exercise, sweet affirmation came with two quotes. In the back of my journal, I found the words of Etty Hillesum (1914-1943), a Dutch Jewish woman in Nazi occupied Amsterdam: “Through me course wide rivers and in me rise tall mountains. And beyond the thickets of my agitation and confusion there stretch the wide plains of my peace and surrender.” Hillesum’s words encouraged me to accept my overwhelm, while also seeing through it with trust in the Spirit’s bigger picture.
Then I happened upon a poem by Steve Garnass-Holmes, contemporary writer and retired United Methodist pastor. “Gushing” included these lines: “Maybe faith is something you ‘have’ / as a river ‘has’ water./ … Faith is the flowing of love / from the spring of God / through you / into the world, / freely flowing, / the receiving-and-giving, / the passing on…”
The poem reminded me where the Flow comes from. It’s not mine. It’s the Source of Love that I want to flow through me. I both receive and surrender what I’m given — my giftedness, skills, capacities—to Love and serve in each moment, with each varied task. The poem encouraged me to humility, acknowledging my not-so-big place in a wider context. I am re-called to “faith” as trust in the Giver of Life. Trust frees me to do what is mine to do and let go of the rest. It’s a very different orientation from track-jumping, box-checking, “getting things done”.
The prayer below attempts to capture my longings on the banks of my own Braided River. It follows an ancient form used during the Advent season before Christmas — an “O Antiphon” like the hymn, “O come, O come Emmanuel.” Later verses add, “O Wisdom… O Root of Jesse … O Radiant Dawn…” So, why not, O Braided River?
I’m celebrating qualities of the Divine as somehow like that River—majestic, abundant, Life-giving, moving with grace, always carving way forward in Love. I don’t know if my prayer will make sense to others, but the imagery reorients me, reconnects me with what really matters.
O Antiphon for a Braided River
O Braided River,
Your ribbons of shining silver weave across the flatlands,
seen from a miles-wide height.
Lacy streams and expansive bold currents
Merging and diverging, meandering
with varied speed and scope,
toward the same horizon.
O come, thou many-channeled Flow of Beauty.
Carry my assorted efforts onward in your Majesty,
in trust of your Oneness,
though I see it not from a single shore.
Braid my energies with Your Grace,
in ease and sparkle,
at a pace fitting for each task.
Keep me rolling, supple
in the broad sweep of Your Way.
—Christine Betz Hall 2026
