Sunday April 23: Beyond Self

To Practice

• Take some time this week to walk with a trusted friend and notice the transformations occurring in nature all around you. Notice any changes occurring in your body as you do this. Take some time to sit down with each other to acknowledge any untended grief, stress or joy. Be present to the stillness and silence within, knowing it is flowing love beyond all identifications, stories, and earthly suffering. Know that this practice itself has begun another transformation. See for one another how you have been transformed.
• You may wish to watch this Thomas Keating video, “What is Your Relationship to Jesus?” (31 minutes) where he begins by describing his relationship to Jesus and continues to unpack who and what Jesus Christ is as well as the deepening path of consent.

You may wish to reread the full reflection here: https://mailchi.mp/coutreach/word-of-the-week-april23

Sunday April 23: Beyond Self

Trusted friend walks in Maryland; I walk in Tennessee. Transformations observed in nature: spring arrived Easter Sunday, when we awoke to a green canopied world that the day before was brown and bare. Steady rains wash away pollen and airborne impurities as baptism washes away sin. Several times a week we sit together to tend to soul work: grief, joy, challenges of child rearing, our spiritual journey. Our conclusion: we need only look to the other as on looks in the mirror, to see our own inner transformations. We help each other keep our mirrors clear, so we can reflect best God’s love through us to the world. <3 linda

I am so blessed by this group – thanks to all!

I must confess, though, that I struggled with – and was troubled by – the video included in this week’s reflection. Initially, I was so excited to watch it because of the title, but I could not get through it. It seemed so disconnected from the Jesus of the Gospels – our Immanuel, our ever-present Teacher who taught about the Father with such vivid, earthy, practical, tender, personal imagery – the Jesus who promises I’ll hear His voice……….how I depend on that each day! For a simple, non-philosopher soul like myself, hearing phrases like “God is nothing” is incredibly disheartening. Of course I know this was not the intention – that these words were expressed from love and a lifetime of holy experience. Still, I cannot deny the heaviness & stress in my heart when I hear a relationship with Jesus described in such esoteric, disincarnate terms. How I desperately need the Risen Christ incarnate in my life each day! Thank you for holding this sacred space where I can share my honest heart. How blessed I am each week by all of you!

God’s touching deeply into being: “The person I normally take myself to be… is never really remotely the whole of who I am.” is awakening  a profound truth that I am embracing, this bigger life that I have always sought is real, has always been there. So each consenting  breath is a breath of detachment from “my normal self”.

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