Sunday October 1: Breathing In and Breathing Out

To Practice:

• Prayerfully reread these passages again in the manner of Lectio Divina, perhaps aloud so you can engage more of your senses. What do you hear for your journey now?
• Examen: Have you experienced the fruits of Centering Prayer flowing into and through your activities? Have you experienced a new aliveness, a new depth of meaning, in the work of your ordinary life from the practice of Centering Prayer?  How have you celebrated these gifts?
• Listen to this song from Susan Lincoln as Audio Divina and sing along if you wish. What arises from your heart?

If you wish to re-read the full email reflection, you may find it here: https://mailchi.mp/coutreach/word-of-the-week-oct1

Wow! These readings are so rich? I have trouble focusing on just one, never mind one word. I guess I have to go with the sons although I am really attracted to the emptying of self so important to CO. But I have 3 sons and while we were raising them, this frequently played out. Even today the son that says yes and does little is so much more attractive than my silent son who does everything for us. He was always saying no growing up, but doing. He drove us crazy. Today, he is the one we count on when needed, but he does not want to be bothered when not needed. That to me is his saying no but showing up whenever and wherever needed. God always shows up when needed, at least that is my experience. But I never receive any indication that is going to happen, it just does. I don’t have any mystical experiences and I know there are many people that do. However, I seen God’s hand working many times in my life. Things that could not happen by chance. I am sure this is a common experience in CO. God is with us in silence and acts with secrecy in our lives. Like dreams. We don’t understand them when we write them down. But let them age and wow we see what they mean. I find it interesting that Jesus goes away alone to pray so many times. The apostles fall asleep while Jesus is praying just before His arrest. Saying yes but falling asleep. The apostles are so human and so like us, especially Peter. So I plead guilty of saying yes many times to the Lord and doing nothing. It is in centering prayer that I am most like Jesus in going away to pray. Look what it achieved in His life! This is why CO is so important. It is great that it is here on the internet available to all. Thank you!

Dear Thomas:  I love your enthusiastic sharing.  This line really landed as truth in me: “God always shows up when needed, at least that is my experience. But I never receive any indication that is going to happen, it just does.”

Thanks for your practice and for showing up here to share in community. – Pamela

I spent some time this week in a  blend of the Audio Visio , beathing in and breathing out, and gazing at the image provided this week. I recall Hildegard’s self definition as a feather of the breath of God. I enter into the dance of feathers till it becomes a dervish of all sorts of feathers. I allow myself to risk plumbing the depths of joy and delight. Some feathers have the appearance  of dragon flies, others flowers, others angels. butterflies. It’s a willingness to enter the dance as you are. It’s a type of body  bodily consenting, just let go and enter into  the dance. Joy and sorrow are life companions. In this time of sorrowing I needed this week to let joy embrace me, hold me fast till I could allow  joy and delight to guide my feet. A lot of Welcoming prayer moments freed me to take the first step to enter the dance. This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving, a welcome pause to delight in grateful heart.

What I hear for my journey now is seeing “God in everything, and you see God intentionally working with circumstances outside of you and inside of you.” Facing new health challenges for a loved one has brought God’s working in everything to the fore. God is using these new, liminal circumstances to work both outside and inside me. Deeper trust and faith in God are being developed. Help my unbelief! <3 linda

Two aspects of the readings struck me. First I have a great devotion to Mary. I have taken  the St. Louis de Montfort Consecration to Jesus through Mary. I promise as Mary did to be the handmaid (slave) of the Lord. Through the hands of Mary I turn over everything I have into the hands of the Lord. That changes the center of where I dwell. It allows me to more easily approach centering prayer with Mary as my guide. Montfort says you need grace and Mary is full of Grace. Montfort says you need the Lord and the Lord is with Mary. Montfort says Mary is the “secret” that I need. I have found it to be so.

Secondly there is the wisdom in this reading of looking for what is true, beautiful, gracious, honorable and what is excellent in our family, friends, neighbors, country and planet because these are all aspects of the God we seek to find in centering prayer. I have difficulty doing this because I tend to be a negative, suspicious person. My first inclination is to criticize my family,friends, neighbors and country. Yet how can I possibly approach the God who is Love, by being so negative. Every time I say something negative, my wife mirrors it back at me because she cannot stand any of my negative comments. I struggle with this every day. It is amazing that I cannot get rid of this habit. I do it unconsciously. But in centering prayer I leave all of this behind. Instead of criticizing everything else, I must look at myself and how God sees me  and forgives me.

 

 

[Author]

Posts