Sunday November 19 – The Reciprocity of Love

To Practice

– Prayerfully re-read these passages again in the manner of Lectio Divina, perhaps aloud so you can feel them with more of your senses. What opens your heart?

– Is there a gift you have been reluctant to receive, use or invest in? Is there someone in your life you feel called to invest in but have not answered that call? What beliefs are holding you back? In the light of God’s love, what is being called forth?

– You are invited to remember the gift of fortitude by listening to a section of video of Thomas Keating from 4:20-6:35 minutes. Notice where it leads you and what opens up for you. The Gifts of the Holy Spirit Part 3 – Active Gifts, and Homily; by Thomas Keating – YouTube

If you wish, you may re-read the full email reflection here: https://mailchi.mp/coutreach/word-of-the-week-nov19

Questions that arose after lectio divina: what am I entrusted with today?

How could fear interfere with my trust in God and in my own ability to bring about more good today?

 

The usual homilies and writings about the Parable of the Talents deeply trouble me. All my working life was spent in education and healthcare so I have no knowledge or understanding of which sorts of enterprise would quickly generate 100% in profits. From what I glean from news reports etc, the most profitable sectors seem to be those dealing with illegal drugs, people trafficking, pornography, illegal logging or mining, selling counterfeit goods etc. Jesus advised that we are merely unprofitable servants. Or what could I possibly bring to the Lord for Him to say “Well done, good and faithful servant”? My hope is to come in the end with empty hands, having gradually learned to let go of everything that impedes the flow of His love.

From the body of the email: with fortitude use your gifts.   However small they may be.   Living with chronic illness and a diminishing ability to do some things requires much fortitude to invest in the gifts diminutions bring – more stillness, quiet, prayer, enjoying  nature, and learning deeper surrender and acceptance.  And more.   And of course, the great gift of this community.  Much Gratitude to Pamela and all who bring Word of the Week to us.

I am grateful for mages like the one this week and for my dream images. The image has two sets of quadrants. The outer quandrant number 1,2,3,4. Both the image and my dreaming, a huge movement into the sunterranean of my being. I am living one of the biggest challenges in my life, perhaps akin to being birthed. The trauma of my now being birthed is very much unconscious,  quantrant 3. The kind of love I experienced following birthing and my formative years, held all the oomph layers that year after year that needed  to be navigated. To get from quadrant 3 to quadrant 1, I have navigated the thin veil of despair, the key that unlocks the door to my subterranean sanctuary. The accumulation time of quadrant 3,2,4, is now being divested; it’s divesting tme, cleaning up the corners of hoarding, squirrling away. My dreaming part of my life leaves me with such  intense  feelings, I need to spend time in Welcoming Praying to eventually allowing me to gaze into  the symbolism, to the whole picture of my life unfolding the plan that is not mine, inviting me to claim, tending the bright shoots of everlastingness, Space doesn’t allow me telling you my whole dream time. Washing  my clothes, I am am achieving a relationship with my emotional self, getting rid of  negative feelings, attitudes. The interview on Tuesday is taking on new meaning. This time I am totally involved with the birthing I am now going through, the birthing  akin to that of when I breathed by first breath all these years ago.

 

 

 

 

As I end this week, listening to the suggested Keating video became an Examen of Consciousness: My days are knit together with the presence of God. On awakening “Behold , O lord , I come into your presence…,” ending : “Hide me in the shelter of your wings, guard me as the apple of your eye.” Each time I pray the Welcoming Prayer, which then may happen any number of times throughout the day. I have long know that “the Spirit cannot endure being  box-in”. My waking life and my dreaming life encompass all of my real life. My dreaming experiences churn up intense feelings, at which time I prayer the Welcome Prayer as I leave all in the hands of the Indwelling Spirit. The W.P. thrusts me into this “dialogue unto death”, death to my accumulated “emotional program”, freeing energy for mutual forgiveness and in depth understanding. My great humiliation is the exposing of the errors of my ‘well/articulated/erroneously intentioned’ emotional programing. Humiliation is freeing up energy to remain more often in the Presence of God and bringing others into the SPIRIT’s PRESENCE. This week I heard in a new way, “Thank you kind lady.”

 

 

 

 

 

“…the light from the inner sanctuary of the soul can be a workaday light for the marketplace, a guide to perplexed feet…” Thomas Kelly’s words speak to what centering prayer can become. During prayer times, we nurture the “bright shoots of everlastingness”. Then, during day to day living, that light shines on the paths of all encountered. Called to be a light, shining on paths for perplexed feet. Allow me to be “deadly earnest” in my dedication to the light. <3 linda

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