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- Seeing with the Eye of the Heart: The Practice of Visio Divina
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The image draws me into something so real, so propound, so beyond words.!
I find myself engaging in the “I AM” spontaneously alternating with the welcome prayer. I was drawn into the image on first glance centered in joy. In 1976-7 on a sabbatical:Biblical Exegise and Social Justice, we began with Exodus chapters 1-19. This Sunday reminded me of a foundational experience of Moses on Holy Ground before the burning bush which set me off on the slow recognition my “I AM”; ‘ You are my prized possession (Segullah), whose value to me is beyond all expectation (19:3). Intuitively “become fire”, a silent invitation that I am only beginning to be aware of glancing at this week’s image, a bouquet. Praying the I AM meditation this week is more akin to is “i am”. Many years of lived experience and suffering, the “still small voice” of I AM WHO I AM leads me to this week, this image as PRESENCE and “me” “presence”; no words; just JOY.
I join you in praying for all these people. I will add them to a novena of healing March 19-27.
Adeline
My prayers are added to these requests. I add my grand-niece age 34, Alyssa, rushed to emergency with her body shutting down, while visiting her parents.Also prayers for her neuro-divgent young children, and her parents. Thank-you.
What have I learned about what I am clinging to? In the past year I have often said: “We can’t lose any one” Flashback to when my mother broke her hip. I arrive at the hospital. My mother says: “Are they all behind you? I glance backward as she begins her litany of ammends. I hold all of this for my siblings and myself. Further flashback. I am maybe three and a half . My mother has to go and get the neighbors cows out of the yard. She puts baby, Jean on the bed and tells me not to let 9 months sister Jean roll of the bed. My sister Rosemarie who is 2 1/2 watches with glee mom’s efforts to get the cows out of the years. She so gleefully reports all she is seeing, begging me to come and see. I finally do so and baby Jean rolls of the bed, fortunately unhurt.” December 27 I can be like the girl in the image, going for it! free from “We can’t lose anyone”.
The phrase “The incarnation continues in us, as us.” came alive in subtle new awarenesses as I gazed on the image proposed this week. It’s especially at night when for no reason other that I am awake praying through the various segments of my life prompted by the gentleman making the offering of sandals without looking at the women, the women caught up in the intensities her life, not seeing the offering of the sandals, as incarnation happening in us as us. Spontaneous like a bubbling kettle the Welcome Prayer is finding an incarnational pathway.
Mid morning, as I sit here with deep gratitude for all you my c0-WoW- companions as togther we we plunge into the Advent mystery, so apply lived/noted by Thomas Merton as ” the begining and end of all in us that is not yet Christ.”Our church services keep the focus on Jesus, that child whose birth is imminent. Today we celebrate the feast day of John of the Cross. I am also deeply grateful for John of the Cross for as a bosum friend of many years accompanied me through all the years of ups and downs of this Advent mystery that is “the begining and the end of all, that is not yet Christ.” I have been fortunate that for several years I could avoid things like the singing of Christmas hymns during Advent, so I could be open to the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day SURPRISE, one one more step into all that is not yet Christ in me. The reflection we had a couple of weeks back on “endings” is a great gift on my Advent 2024 unfolding. “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work me/us. will continue to complete is until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Visio with the image, my movement into consenting…..
During our Wednesday gathering this past week, the phrase ” The carnation continues in us, as us” , intermingling with the image took me to that very real and wordless place, at first myself, then all of us. Today I pause and wonder, does the depth of this awareness and reality end with my/our last breath or does plumbing these depths continue in our forever home as a personal experience? a collective experience, no longer them and us? or ??????. This afternoon I simply rest as I am, as we are, open, consenting to morphing into … the Christ….
Thank you, Linda, your experience words touch me deeply. DEEPLY is becoming the path of trust and blessing.
As the false self diminishes…. the separate self lingers on, as now I step into the 2025 Jubilee year of HOPE:
Friday, I went for my regular eye examination. My two eyes don’t always function as one image. This time the specialist decided to issue me a prescription to align as one image. I open WoW and am totally stunned!!!two lenses totally different!!! Kathleen your use of the word “align, a secret blessing. So, entering into this week’s C.P. times+ ++++, I consent to sink deeply into this SECRET EMBRACE. If my computer could do this there would be a series of orange colored downward facing arrows…….. down, down, down,…….
The readings, reflections and images provided, these last six weeks have plunged me deeper and deeper into the layers of my inner abyss “of giving my all”. When is enough enough no longer haunts me. This weeks image was especially insightful. Giving my all as a roped turner , allowing others to be all they can be, enjoying their joy of skipping!!! This morning, I enter fully into the joy of being a rope skipper!!! and blessing the rope turners!!!
I am in God, God is in you, you are in God, we are in each other.
This sentence speaks volumes into my deep self:” In the warm certainty of God within, we chill out and are simply there in God’s Presence.” Today my chill out time was preceded by a telephone conversation where someone I care about was deeply upset about an aspect of our current situation. Chilling out , over powering at first, leading to a generosity of spirit in accepting this is her way of moving through a time of upheavel. My chilling out during centering prayer, makes possible our chilling out together Wednesday.
Prayers please:
My sister Rosemarie, 89, suffers from severe CDOP + plummeting B.P. Came home after a 5 day emergency hospitalization in time for Thanksgiving. Back again following a fall in which she suffered a Labral tear on a hip replacement several years ago. Her daughter, Melanie, in rehab herself for a 3-bone ankle break ( on August 29, she had to wait 3 weeks for an available O. Surgeon) . From her rehab, Melanie will get to the hospital where her mom is tomorrow to make a decision for care. One possible hospital transfer to Glenrose has refused to receive my sister because she is on oxygen.
Melanie’s children, Nicolette(Nikki), 28, married to Leo an Argentinian, and Christopher, 23 have a big load on their hands ( I can’t forget the 4 dogs, known as the grand-dogs). Nikki works undercover for the Edmonton Police and writes all their public announcements in French. Christopher is taking some kind of shop class, as a heavy duty mechanic, like his grandpa, Adelard Ouimet. Cherie, Mel’s sister, was murdered 2 years ago. The case has not been solved.
Rosemarie is a fiesty one. Between these two hospitalizations she had time to get winter tires on. To do all this she lugs around her oxygen tanks.
Also a prayer for the health care personnel stretched to their limit.
Many thanks, with loving kindness blessings,
Adeline
Prairie Providence Inc.
