Not trying, allowing.

I can’t express my gratitude for this morning . I felt surrounded by God’s sheltering arms. It changed my day.

More thought on the gospel passage, though from a different angle….

extrapolating from the condition of blindness. The Pharisees were blinded by their own satisfaction while the blind Mann could be cured because he knew he was blind. Spiritual illness is the worse handicap. Yet we are obsessed in our culture with physical illness and big big medical centers to assuage our fear of death. In medieval times, it was more important to make peace with Gid and others before death, not preventing death itself, at any cost. In the service of that living faith, Notre Dame and Charted were built. Now it’s not cathedrals. It’s medical centers.

this has knocked my socks off for the last 24 hours. I did a deep dive into the Girardian lectionary for this moving reflection. It certainly is a corrective to the fear of physical death.

this faith is the truth of God as God is in Godself and not as God is in ‘my’ self; Bernadette Roberts

 

As long as I am in this body,  it is a living, breathing, sensate faith. It is BEING and all that is inside me and outside me, the whole universe. It is that longing in my heart. Yet there is also knowing, beyond thought. It is awareness but the object of awareness is everything and everybody, everywhere, at all times.

The truth of God and being with God in godself, well, that is on the other side of the veil….I stand on this side of the veil, waiting.

 

 

All of a sudden I realize how god must feel, wanting to wash love over people and then so many who are unable to accept….I crawl back to him for. Comfort. And sustenance.

Revelation continues, and that is why these gospel stories deliver over and over to us during our contemplative prayer,  and our daily life. Actually, though I did study the woman at the well reading on Sunday, yesterday, as I was sitting with a situation within, up the story popped with all the nuances I needed.

It just amazes me how scripture feeds me every single day. There is something about it that sets it apart from all other spiritual texts. I never tire of it.

This passage is so alive for me today. Jesus knew there was something different about her in that she was alone in the heat of mid day. The truth was likely that she was an outcast among the other women , since she had been married 5 times , and lived with someone not her husband. Jesus must have known that her history would yield many problems for her. yet he didn’t condemn her. in fact he treated her as having full dignity and humanity. He asked for a drink.
can you imagine us going around doing good with people who are outcasts , in “irregular “ relationships, who have a myriad of disgusting problems? The last thing we would do is treat them as if we were the ones in need.

what a lesson Jesus provides for us. He treated the woman at the well as the equal she was. More importantly (for me) , he didn’t analyze or  try to “fix” her like she was some kind of object. He was honest with her without condemning. He befriended her and her community  of Samaritans (outsiders for Jews). He persisted when criticized by his apostles.

her gratitude must have lifted his heart as he made his way to the mountain top to talk to his father at day.’s end.

 

at the end of the online prayer, section session, I was moved to share and will now. I am an introvert and realize that when I spend a lot of time with people or crowded areas, I develop a debilitating headache, and need to sleep to make it go away. I pictured myself, generally, not just then, as having an electric current going directly to my brain. It gets so strong, it feels like it could explode if I didn’t do something. So, I walk or, better, do art. Some judge, inside or outside, will say, I feel too much, I think too much, I care too much (my mother’s words). Well, that is the dark side of a lot of good. But, in my minds eye, I see myself turning. down the current, like on a dimmer switch. I Say to my poor mind: It’s OK, Please rest (in MY arms, says God).

 

Glad I am not alone on this freakin journey!

This helps. More and more, I am dropping into my body and giving that overused mind a break.
I read , I do lectio, I write in my journal. I used all the intellectual tools at my disposal to discern right thinking, fight action. then, I forget all and drop down into my heart space.

roger housdden provided the image of “threading the needle of the present  moment”.

i feel”over the moon” about the reflection and postings so far.  (grin). i sense that we are all speaking the same language…. without  words! weirdly, it isnt about hope for me even. it is about threadingthe needle of the present moment, between despair and hope. this morning i woke up in a state of anxiety about an up oming surgery for my husband in syracuse, 250 miles away. after staying hoome these many months, what are we to do? stay the night before  in a hotel and will i stay over  or drive home and back the next day?

i go and sit. silence calms. my mind stops and when my thinking resumes, it is slow. this stopping to  go into  silence makes these days a blessing.

meister eckhart says that multiplicity is our greatest attachment.

i was raised in syracuse and for 40 years have been near the canadian border. i actually like the darkness (although have needed a lamp for more light at times)., the worse the weather the more i want to go out in it. the other day i rode my bike by a hugr being next to the dirt path i was on. stopping, a snowy owl and i gazed in others eyes  for many minutes until a woman with a dog approached. as he took off over the st lawrence  river with his huge wing span dominating my view.

 

doesnt that just sum up this magical journdy we are on? endless mystery and beauty for those grAnted vision.

 

thank you all. kathy

i agree with keeping my lamp trimmed  and filled with oil. it is not for me to know what god is doing . my job is to watch and wait. the oil is purchased throough hours spent in solitude and silence. i need endless amounts of  that,  it seems, to be really ready.

well , yes. centering prayer for years now, i listen to carl arico’s prayer on tthe app , ending with “responding to God’s love  for us moment  by moment by moment by moment”..

at the beginning of Advent last year, i decided that i would let God tell me in each  moment what to do, instead  of depending on habitual sequences of thoughts, emotions and actions. at first, it seemed like i was flinging myself from pillar to post. it was a perfect set up for what was to  come in march of this year. i had to give up my precious open studio and all my friends. most dont use a computer(not advantaged).

now i find myself choosing  to slow down on a massive  scale. i had minor surgery  a few weeks ago that has been slow in healing. in trying  to “do”a lot, including reaching out to others, i had a day full of minor accidents at home involving reopened wounds . i didnt really believe old age was really in the cards for me. but alas, it is here. my husband fell and threw out  his back on the same day. how humiliating. how appropriate. how i need to let go of that protestant ethic of always  having to produce something, in  my mother’s words “earn my bed and board.”

so i am on that thomas merton train : “lord, i have no idea where i am going…”

susan, i see what you mean. i have  been paricipating in compassionate listening workshops during this time. one concern has been about white privelige, how we can  grow in our thinking and attitudes. in the end we want to make our culture more loving . i find myself called to those who are set in their ways against the “other”. they are all around me. they are spiritually poor. they are afraid and that manifests itself in anger. in greivance. they are unable to be open  because they are so afraid. they cant articulate their  feelings so they post things on the internet that seem extreme (to  me), out of character for  the people who i know seek to be good  , to be kind.

so i sympathize with the virgins who were  so preoccupied with their own concerns that they “forgot” to get more oil.

ah, what a great image for our life calling….waiting

in the morning , as i go to my chair to do centering prayer, it’s  as if there are monkeys having a dance party in my head. the bodily felt sense there is something to behold.

then there is a steady image of myself as a busker on a knife’s edge.

being called to hold vigil each moment of each day is a constant theme underneath the noise.

The editorial says: our long national nightmare is over. truly, there is no closure on this side. i commit to waiting through the good dreams and the nightmares. doing the next , most loving thing. all the celebration and teeth-gnashing recedes to the background.

just being here waiting. waiting for God to fill the emptiiness  i am holding open for Him.

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