September 17: Bending to Love

To Practice

• As you move through your day, notice what or whom is bending to love. A walk or sitting in nature might attune you to this more quickly. What do you learn?
• Watch this six-minute video from Thomas Keating, “The Cross as a Symbol of God’s Gratuitous Love.”
• Is there somewhere in your life that you feel like a victim? If so, you might find this video helpful by Carolyn Myss (17:30 min.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzmShnlCBWw

If you would like to read this week’s full reflection, you may do so here: https://mailchi.mp/coutreach/word-of-the-week-sept17

I am reading “Healing” by Mary Healy. She is a scripture scholar that makes all the more powerful. The physical healings show the awesome love God has for us. It also shows that the healings that I need for the hurts that I have felt are certainly more easily healed than the physical healings that attract our undivided attention. Physical wounds get immediate attention. We are rushed to the emergency room or now the store front immediate medical attention. Yet when someone hurts us and the pain is so bad that some turn to drugs because their is no emergency room to go to.  Yet at CO we know there is one and we go to it.

Thank you, Pam and team for introducing the clip from Carolyn Myss at this timed in WoW. Carolyn is the amazing woman that compliments/unfolds an understanding of  one’s  personal experience of the human condition. Currently I am part of a situation where understanding this Archetype is a helpful key to crossing a threshold none of us chose  but through which we can grow into embracing  a new path through empowering….oneself, those with whom I walk.

I observe when I bend to love I am first reaching into the solitude, filling buckets from the Living Waters, then pouring into whomever comes to mind after my prayer. The love takes the shape of a note to loved ones, a walk across the yard with a mower, or a pile of freshly folded laundry placed where it belongs. Bending to love is one of the best practical practices I know. <3 linda

“Disengage” is the word and the action that have opened a new way of responding to a neighbor who has been a source of hurt for several years. I had never thought of disengagement as an act of compassion for the “other”. By disengaging from this person, I can remove the opportunity for her to do harmful things that she might regret later and I can remove my temptations to think angry thoughts about her. A much more loving and effective way to end a relationship.

A combination Visio/Lectio a blend of image and words of Myra Scopel, took me to my childhood, where prairie willows on the edge of a slough and prairie poplars were the only trees dotting our prairie landscape. A prairie breeze among the poplars was a special experience. There would be a slight wave of the leaf, a greeting or a good bye gesture,  when the wind was gentle; a stronger breeze the twigs and the leaves  danced in unison. This produced a chatter among the poplars, they were talking to each other. I am recalling how I stood in silence wrapped up in the chatter my spirit joining in whispers. And so I began my Visio/Lectio. We didn’t rake leaves in my childhood. Nature took care of them. We could see them bunched up here and there where eventually each gave up its life eventually blending into the landscape. Following centering prayer I am left in the arms of the Holy Spirit brushing away layers of  my ego debris, my cheeks full of air releasing; profound sigh, a period to my experience. A lingering recall  follows, as I bow in gratitude.

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