“Being contemplative is about being aware and awake to God’s presence in the ordinary … It’s about taking a long, loving look at all that is…..” during Lent I participated in Thomas Keating’s THE GIFT OF LIFE, then in June, 30 days of CONSCIOUS AGING, then yesterday the visit of one of the few BEHM cousins I have. My Grandpa Behm left the turmoil of Eastern Europe to find a new home. After 14 years he managed to have 2 sons join him, my dad age 17 and my Uncle John age 15; the others either died in the Great Influenza or were deported to Siberia. Karen’s grandmother  was a cousin to my grandfather. Yesterday’s visit churned up memories of life in a new country, the only life Karen and I have known. Gazing contemplatively at this week’s image going back through many chapters of “walking with…” I have this “felt sense”  of being sent , many versions with many companions, by the One who called Abraham and the generations of people who shared my DNA; the One whom every morning I greet with “Behold I come to do your will.. your commandments, my inheritance, and my joy.” My dreaming time has been very active spilling over into this liminal space before waking. Visio Divina of this image allows me to embrace a “blessed spacious-ness”. My Word of the Week companions bless me along my present path; for this I am grateful.

During the time that I could not access WoW, I was praying/reflecting/journaling my way through “Conscious aging” an S&P offering with Cynthis Bourgeault. I wonder if this might a bit of humor from The Holy Spirit. One thing that was a blessing was Cynthia’s light hearted humor; her lived wisdom, her curiosity; a person like me a well with a developed practice of inquiry ( and I am wondering a perhaps a person somewhat on the neurodivergent spectrum.)

There were 1350 signed up; a scattering in their 50’s, 60’s,  the bulk of us octogenarians/nonagenarians. Because I am a long time practitioner of the Welcome Prayer , my waking life/dreaming life/liminal became a non-boundary practice morphing into praying my life all the way back to my childhood,  even further, the past of ethnic group’s anxieties, determination and such.

This Sunday’s Word of the Week became a blended follow through where “Conscious Aging” left me the threshold of ” freedom”. The image this week, all the colors and shapes speak to me of “spacious-ness”. Praying the desire to let go of  power and control spoke to me of freedom as “spacious-ness”.

In the thread of the many  spontaneous sessions of the Welcome Prayer, I saw word’s like: rigidity,  my agency as in ” bending the world to me dreams and ends; my truth” etc., all the opposites to spacious-ness, named as they float way, swallowed up like the dying stars that get swept up into the big black holes of outer space. I feel ( a felt sense) so at home in the colors and shapes. That little cross shape vertical red color on the blue base/ horizontal black color  with the three faint curves: me and the Holy Spirit, sending out spacious-ness blessings; I embrace each of these moments, so I won’t forget. And so I send spacious-ness blessings to my of Word of Week  and ” Conscious Aging” companions.

 

 

 

 

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