Sunday September 7: The Leap of Faith

Practices

• Watch this video of Thomas Keating reflecting on The Value of Letting Go and Trusting God (8:51 minutes). As you watch, reflect on specific situations that are currently challenging you. When a relatively strong feeling comes up, pause the video. Practice the Welcoming Prayer by sinking into that sensation in your body. Welcome what you are experiencing; say these words aloud, “Welcome, welcome, welcome. I let go of my desire for security, affection, control and embrace this moment as it is.” Then continue watching the video, pausing as many times as you need.

• Have contemplative practices given you a sense of a more spacious world? You are invited to use any form of art – collage, watercolor, drawing, photography, etc. – to depict an aspect of the world that is more spacious, more alive, more vivid, for you as a contemplative.

• In last week’s Word of the Week reflection, we considered Cynthia Bourgeault’s understanding of Jesus’ message: “It is not a renunciate path. It is not a hold-back, guard-your-purity, don’t-touch-the-world-because-you-might-be-contaminated. It is the world of give yourself fully, hold nothing back because in this act of complete self-giving you make manifest what the kingdom of love looks like.” How might you practice manifesting this kingdom of audacious love this week?

• There is a time lag between any leap of faith and the awareness of a new perspective, new understandings. The poem below suggests that resting in silence helps us deal with the disorientation we often experience during such transitions. May it encourage and comfort you.

Trough
by Judy Sorum Brown

There is a trough in waves,

A low spot

Where horizon disappears

And only sky

And water

Are our company,

And there we lose our way

Unless

We rest, knowing the wave will bring us

To its crest again.

There we may drown

If we let fear

Hold us within its grip and shake us

Side to side,

And leave us flailing, torn, disoriented.

 

But if we rest there

In the trough,

Are silent

Being with

The low part of the wave,

Keeping

Our energy and

Noticing the shape of things,

The flow,

 

Then time alone

Will bring us to another

Place

Where we can see

Horizon, see the land again,

Regain our sense

Of where

We are

And where we need to swim

 

If you wish, you may re-read the full email reflection here: https://mailchi.mp/coutreach/2025_word-of-the-week-sept7

The fledging in the this week’s image is speaking wordless volumes into my life. A new awareness of the Jesus’ list of those to hate includes my triad egoic attachments. Another new awareness: ” divine love overflows from the interior life into our hearts”. The “heart” represents for me  my openness to: the part of me that  embraces the outpouring of God’s love; “the embracing of this moment just as it is” following the letting go of my trio of detachments.” A meeting I attended this week, a humungous  leap into “spaciousness”, another new awareness providing tangible sensation that strain the ribcage of my chest area to contain “this spacious” as I inhale/exhale to accommodate an unbelievable spaciousness.

HUMBLY-GRATEFUL/THANKFUL/BLESSED!

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