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October 14, 2024
“Picturing myself with Jesus as I receive his loving gaze from deep within.”
This took me back to a revealing exercise in one of my training sessions where wewere asked to play at the age of 6. My response was to sit on the side with a book in my lap watching everyone else do the same thing. This fit my age 6 self. For by then I had assumed a position of seeing that everyone one of my siblings was okay. If there was time I would engage in my favorite thing, reading. These days, this is my little group of ten women, years and years later.
These weeks in discussions about changes ten of us are in the process of searching for. I recall myself saying : “We can not lose anybody.” Our facilitator is the only one who hears with curiosity.
Today, Canadian Thanksgiving, the first reading from Colossians 3:12-17, we are addressed as God’s chosen, holy, beloved, with these instructions: clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, meekness and patience. Both humility and patience, my present challenges.
The Gospel from Matthew: “Ask and it will be given to you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you.
For everyone who asks will receive, everyone who searches will find, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
So as this weeks continues as an introduction to C.P., with gestures, I attend, I allow, I accept, I await, consenting, to the pull of the loving gaze of Jesus, down, down, deep, down, down, deep….. allowing Jesus’ gaze to penetrate my bruised ego…. the me: chosen, holy, beloved.
Here in Canada this weekend Thanksgiving weekend. In this season of the gathering of abundance, the harvest is gathered, zillions of colored leaves around every corner, fill our day as do the fabulous dancing light in our night skies, all invitng us to be present to PRESENCE. So, as I am thankful, grateful, blessed, I hold in this PRESENCE all who are living disrupted lives, enveloping all in PROVIDENCE‘s tender mercy.
Hello, just a suggestion, if any of you may, like me, allow the Spirit to take us to surprising depths with such as ” The Fall of Freddie the Leaf”, by Leo Buscaglia. You can access an ad-free pdf copy. The sub title is “A Story for all ages”Where I live we are being dazzled by outburst of color as our prelude to winter. In addition, this year northern lights add a night time dazzle. Though this time is a time of struggle for me, “dazzle/joy/delight are almost too much! I am learning not to question the Holy Spirit, who knows the right balance.
The image presented this WEEK was a challenge for me, a somewhat anoying one. until I consented to see as that child saw this child presented in this image. Then moments ago I attended a virtual Mass presided by a very elderly priest, who is rarely our celebrant now. I saw him as he was/is. These tweo bookends of life speak deeply into my life, with my new consenting presence. Then these words from Richard Rohr today enveloped me in a knowing, a precious kind of knowing:
“It’s taken me much of my life to begin to get to the second gaze. By nature, I have a critical mind and a demanding heart, and I am impatient. These are both my gifts and my curses. Yet I can’t have one without the other, it seems. I can’t risk losing touch with either my angels or my demons. They are both good teachers. A life of solitude and silence allows them both, and invariably leads me to the second gaze. The gaze of compassion, looking out at life from the place of Divine Intimacy is really all I have, and all I have to give, even though I don’t always do it.”
The gospel today from Luke was Jesus’ asking “Who you say I am” that was part of our WoW reflection a few Sundays ago, like an echo from our Wenesday C.P./Visio/Lectio Divina/Sharing, Again another profound experience. In addition I am truly grateful to those two teachers Richard is referring to, who are my great teachers. In order to engage I must also consent to descending into despair; but oh the delight of the ‘rising from’, and to engage in the messy situation where I find myself these days with great compassion for each one plodding through the messiness with total confidence in my evacuation SPIRIT.
The focus on the Wednesday sharing group drifted into the question Jesus asking “Who do you say I am?”. The image this week envelopes me in a “knowing” the answer in the marrow of my bones where wordless is real, says it all. You are the “I am who I am” of the burning bush (Ex. 19); the burning bush of my earlier years has morphed into the image before me this week.
“BE OPENED” an inviation this week in my pondering and my living. The image brought home the close relationship between humanity and creation. I grew up in world where relationship to the animals was of prime importance on our survival. A horse who no longer had the energy to plough a field in teams of 6 or 8, may become the children’s horse. They drove us to school, took us out on errands. I remember the closesness and the mutual respect. Pondering this closeness I continued to ponder the theme of 2024 Season of Creation: to hope and to act with creation. Instincually a horse only wants to be the best horse possible. The creation our God has given us has been altered in significant ways that threaten our existence. How is creation hoping and acting? in unison with you and me, with us, human beings? With respect to this question I respectfully hear: BE OPENED!”
“As we sit in this sacred stillness, we begin to recognise the patterns of our thoughts and the root of our intentions. We see how the fears, desires, and impulses arising from within can misdirect our attention, leading us away from peace and towards harmful actions. ” Gazing into this week’s image, my heart centre is in anguish for all of creation. I am joining in what is now an annual time September 1 – Oct. 4, “The season of creation.”. This year’s theme HOPE and ACTION. No matter which way I turn the image there is that angry face of distruction of ALL creation, both human and all other parts of this world we live in. But, I also see other images gentle images of light intersperaced throughout. These are the oasis’ of Hope. My heart dwells here. I am not alone. All those joining in this season of reflection are with me. Closing office space and down sizing my home, I can choose where evrything finds a new home. I can take the time. A lovely woman in her late 40’s is helping me. I can take the time to gently allow her to let go of her inclination to dispose nilly willy, and become aware at the same time of my past desctructive behaviours. My “quest house” along with the Welcome Prayer are a space of triage. The introduction to my C.P. is Thomas’ , HERE I AM DEAR LORD, “I just allow YOU to sit and pray in me, asking for what we which to bestow….”
The image keeps pulling on me all week- the long stem rather like an umbilical cord or perhaps a birthing canal – anything to do “the narrow way, found by few?????, the gentle intriging nudge, or pull all week; not like something to be solved, perhaps an invitation to allow myself to be swallowed up, with a gentle rocking into Thomas’ Secret Embrace’ – ” Then the dance of the human nature with That Which IS taking on a whole new perspective” like sinking into, into, into “Nowhere is my destination. And no one is my identity…
The final STAFF&BOARD gathering this past Monday, to my great surprise, I recognize I am being embraced by this ” dance of the human nature with That Which IS ” the movement of the colors, a gentle rocking motion, there is nothing to control, there is just blessful surrender.
“a restructuring of consciousness takes place, a process known only in retrospect. Step-by-step, consent deepens into surrender.” I have gone through many seasons of restructuring. The current one is being challenged, verified as I write. In half an hour I will be gathering with a group as we meet one last time as staff members and Board members to remember and share one last meal, celebrating what has been and what goes forward as a blessing that keeps blessing…. consenting our way into surrender… a willing… surrendering … ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL MANNER OF THINGS SHALL BE WELL.
As I begin this week’s reflection, that women in this week’s image is so me. It seems that the images of weeks past all morph into the bold me of this image this week. From that tiny flower in leaf stage (July 14) , through the fertilization through desolation and despair (July 28), through the blessing of my true self(Aug. 4). The me in the image this week has traversed many years, my body shows the wear of the years, muscles limp and sagging, but my tray of offering is real and bold. The fish become offerings of blessing, of blessings in word, gestures and presence (being present). I can identify with the phrase: “We only must open to the Source not as a prize for the perfect but rather as loving nurture for the wounded and the weary. No matter what our situation, we can relax and receive the Divine Presence in every event, in every moment.” This morning, Rhonda took me shopping; then took my downsizing items to St. Mary’s garage sale in a part of the city where there is a predominantly indigenous, new immigrant population. Then as I re-entered my building, my home of some 80 apartments, there at the door is a younger teen eager to get the door for me and to claim his place in a new country. I am grateful to vicariously experience joy, hope, anticipation.
As I begin this week : Futility of their minds” sucks me into my current struggles; the image provided this week is like a breath of fresh air. There is new life as I wrestle futility? No, as my mind wrestles, the Indwelling Spirit is at work evacuating and doing for me what I desire in the very depth of my being; I am open, willing, consenting, letting go……….humbly consenting…..
This week these two phrases on a a walk though of my life back to my childhood: “the way of conscious love” and :”the most excellent way” via the image. Some thirty or so years ago I began to explore the significance of colors and shapes as in naming one’s experiences. The color brown signifies fertilization for me; the brown letters reminds me of branding ( cattle for instance or soldiers in the Roman Army). The seal of the Divine is being branded deep within my being. Those brown shapes perhaps searing of branding flames around the heart. Where I live fertilizers are very important in producing plants of all sorts. Could it be that the evacuations of my Indwelling Spirit produces a fertilizer, searing more deeply into me the very image of God deep within. It seems each time I consent to confront the insufficiencies of my ego/shadow self, something is burned away making room for more letting go to claim the gem of mercy: “By showing mercy, we increase the mercy we receive.” My heart is being challenged to lavish mercy and to be open the receiving of mercy in the depth of my being.
“Compassion is the bridge between self and other, a path that leads to the heart of God”. I got to this week’s WoW later than usual because of a power outage followed by three days getting all my devices functioning. Interesting how the timing of the Holy Spirit is spot on. in the week preceding I had fallen into the tormentor clutches of insufficiency. A new or unfamiliar consciousness is opening, that of seeing myself as being seen by me. Most unusual! A childhood theme of waiting surfaced. Much welcome prayer-ing is pealing back layers of insufficiency that haunted my childhood. This morning I surprised myself , seeing another significant person in a new way on the same path as I am but in a different way. Together we are giving a face to compassion that bridges….
Today the little flower in the image is consenting/welcome prayer-ing traversing once again the torment of insufficiency, allowing Isaiah/Mathews readings today (common lectionary) drench my spirit….
“The second is the inevitable result of doing something for which we are inadequate and unprepared – the experience of failure, which may be real or apparent, private or public. ” Words like “summoned” and the phrases like” Take nothing for the journey” send fear into my egoic self who in desperation is saying “when is enough enough!” And so I trustingly gaze into the image; here I am at step one, willing.
