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“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.
The image this week won’t let me go. Initially I tried to avoid it. Then I wrote of my first glance on Sunday. Since then I pick it up, put it down…. Then today Kosho’s title: “The Chain of Being” opened further, the image speaks of God’s gathering all represented by those lines and colors; God’s gathering not mine to gather. Seeing the larger picture has been a blessing and a curse for me. Centering Prayer and these days a lot of Welcome prayer, especially during my brief nightly wakes-ups, I catch glimpses of a “so-gathered-ness within myself”. As expressed by Mechtilde of Magdeburg: “God is kissing my inmost soul! continually. This is God’s way with everyone! So I, that one little dab of pink, hold those on my path with loving kindness.
A couple of weeks ago, I identified “living on the edge of inside, today “living from the edge of tomorrow”. Initially I wanted to put aside the proposed image. At second glance I allowed myself to be drawn into, way into …there I found myself, this almost invisible this faint/rose/blue me.( 2”from bottom/2” from top/2″ from the left edge.) Here I am on the edge of inside/tomorrow. Here Musica/ Divina bathes my inmost being. For the busy-ness of the image isn’t mine to pay attention to. Perhaps, all those laundry lists that don’t belong to me I can consent to this deep trust of the /my to my Indwelling Spirit. So it is from this edge of inside/tomorrow I consent to engage in this next year long discernment that is fraught obstacles, most of the image. Blessings to all my co-centerers!
“Hope springs from the continuing experience of God’s compassion and help.” Gazing on this week’s image spoke deeply of the maturing of my inner voice. Images like this take the place what words used to convey. There is a faint image just below upper left, recalling the presence of this inner voice before I was 6 years. Just below is another image of the guiding presence of the indwelling Spirit, a constant presence. The boat and surroundings took me though, the following years till perhaps into my sixties and …. When I was in my late 40’s at an Enneagram workshop, one the identifying features of my enneagram space was that I rarely used the word “I”. Then followed years of ego development (the “I” of me), my inner voice (today I see it as the blend of my spirit and the SPIRIT – the two faint, but real images on the left side) . This “I” made myself very visible in the waiting area Social Services department to get the services this woman needed; then following her suicided attempt the “I” running down the the psychiatrist demanding that women could not be released at this time and he listened. Then through years of listening to struggling people’s stories, facing my own darkness, willing to plumb the depths of despair, the “I” that were so carefully previously honed morphed into the self I feel very much at home in (the huge golden sphere in the image). Oh yes, I still need that “I” of the ego. It is becoming more trusting of the self that is the real me. I am more conscious of of an inner voice partnership, the “s”/”S”; I AM truly grateful for all the unloading of the Indwelling Spirit. The white bird-like images in the golden globe, a gift of the Indwelling Spirit=HOPE.
I have always pushed boundaries, though I am only recognizing it now. I am “living on the edge of inside”. The image “Profound Longing” haunted me all week in, the kind of haunting that is a beckoning. Lower right an almost imperceptible there is a distant flame surrounded by a faint dispersal of light, then turn the image 360 degrees tucked away in the upper left is this small image of a person surrounded by a pinkish band like a stone rippling in the water. I recognize this is me ensconced in longing, “I am okay kind of longing”. In the 1980’s the bold red rectangle was an image of my longing; it’s like I was pounding on this thick rectangle with the words of longing of Psalm 63. In the ensuing years I have slipped through, perhaps much like Jesus’ entrance entrance into the upper room where the gatherers were veiled in fear. This week “awe and ordinary ” are a blend of I am okay. I am where I am to be. No longer the pounding( i.e.me) kind of longing. Yesterday I took the Access bus for some shopping of necessary items. My legs gave out on me some 45 minutes before catching this bus back home. Sitting on my walker as people passed on either side of me, I prayed Vespers sending out waves of blessing, me, upper left corner of image, a hushed blend of awe and ordinary. Thank you Hans Hofman; thank you, all WoW community.
One look at Latimor’s image a joy so profound was unleashed in me. I hadn’t prayed with this week”s WoW, so the surprise was great but the reality of this profound joy so deep. Initial reading morphed into I am finally so at home with the mustard seed image of the Kingdom; at last!; at last!
“Grace is like a mustard seed in us the smallest of seeds. It is growing. But it is not going turn us into the Cedar of Lebanon.” At age 18 I set out to be somebody, and I embraced this competitively! Growing up those of my ethnic origins were nobodies. My egoic self got really tired out, till this morning I embrace the blessing of being “nobody”! It has been slowly happening, but today, I consciously consent to embracing “this true self that I am. To accept spontaneously the joy of this past Sunday, I’ve had to be willing to plumb the depths of despair. And so my week continues: thankful/grateful/blessed.
Sitting into “Take me, O take me as as I am” gazing on the image just pulled me through the center blue rectangle edged in red, into that place tending, allowing, accepting. This week two important discernments are “budding”. One discernment almost twenty years during which it seemed one of our discerning partners became silent. The whole of the image would represent how I dealt with this. Then this week, a “budding” move forward in the second discernment begun September 2022. Both have steeped me in ” Thankful, Grateful, Blessed” and my response one of blessing those taking up the torch into the unknown.
“Contemplation provides us with the courage to face the second great question of the spiritual journey: Who are you?” I am the breath of the SPIRIT, one breathing cycle in/out at a time, at a time. Just showing up, thankful, grateful, blessed!
“Doubt is inherited in our personality and in our familial and cultural conditioning. A skeptical, fearful, or traumatic environment fosters a habitual pattern, where second-guessing seems to be a fruitful response for our programs of safety/security, power/control, and affection/esteem. Uncertainty, disbelief, hesitation, indecision, and chronic mistrusting are all forms of doubt, with fear as the root energy.” In this past year a lot has come to light, to new life about how I inherited my doubt response. Last night access transit a service here for people with disabilities forgot me which meant I didn’t get to Mass. I experienced a series of unsettling reactions such as “I didn’t handle it well; I may be penalized, then as the evening proceeded something like self pity arose. I was lucid enough to ask, “what is self pity doing here”? I could see it clearly, and , no, this is not my today response; I realize it’s root is way back in my childhood, somewhere around age 8 when my youngest brother was. His 82 birthday was this week. Ages 2-8 were defining years in the development “making my own happiness”. Yesterday seven hours later a hint of a migraine showed up, indicating to me to take my preventative med. I am honestly open and willing to let my doubt history speak words of wisdom into “letting go”.
When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,
they were all in one place together.
And suddenly there came from the sky….This week gazing into the image provided, a glimmer of, a glimpse into the real Pentecost, “fulfilled”>>>”together in one place” >>>”suddenly”>>> “came”>>> from the sky>>>>. I get the impression the real Pentecost ( the deep orange color) takes a life time to unfold. (the globe) pulsating fuels all the events, happenings, the sacred evacuations to my last breath. So much consenting, so much welcoming in measured release! So much consenting, so much welcoming as the embrace deepens. The we/us becomes increasingly alive.
Transformation happens in relationship – relationship to God, to one’s embodied self, to creation and to the family of God. That includes those that delight us and those that irritate us – who literally rub against our acquired programs for happiness.
Dreams have a way of pointing me in the direction of healing. We began a discernment September 2022 and we will be able to put a period and begin a new era In the first months of discernment, one person rubbed me the wrong way and discontinued being part of the discernment. She turns up in my remembered dream. She makes a big bunch of my hair over my head and cuts my hair under her hand. Wow! no one has ever cut my hair like that before and its turned out rather different but okay. My spirit is totally at peace during this dream time. In Jungian language cutting hair signifies creating order in one’s life. That it is this specific person signifies letting go of not liking myself, the persona I have created for myself. This is one of the most profound discernments I have ever been part off.
Interestingly what you shared Linda, finds a deep place within me .
The image this week spoke powerfully into the a thread “childhood sadness” that followed me throughout my life. I have been able to weep and bring these tears to MY INDWELLING SPIRIT. I am hearing the words, MY BELOVED as they drop deeper and deeper into this abyss of my true self. MY BELOVED envelopes me as I traverse the valley of despair, each time a challenge to trust. RESTORING MY SOUL one tear at a time.
In this Sunday’s common lectionary reading of Luke “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering…” their beloved friend showed them their hands and feet”. I recall experiencing this kind this kind joy, how it has supported me, gave me comfort and courage. So, as I begin this week I humbly offer “my/our broiled fish” and consent and consent my way into this week, seeing the robin catching a worm near the fringes of the snow bank, see my first butterfly (truly a risk taker) and hearing the beckoning call of the redwing black bird, male and female throating each one’s unique melody. The echo of hearing anew yesterday taking me all the way back to my childhood. And so, willing I consent ….
I am having that kind of week, 12-18 months ago I did not think possible. Trusting willingly the unfolding inner dialogue in my pit of despair I engaged in two significant gatherings, and AA 5th-step with a gentleman swimming through the murky waters of PTSD. My own recent dream experience of pre-self-pity powerlessness as a child was a precursor to my listening, engaging presence this week. Lectio Divina of conversation dialogue was the Indwelling Spirit sitting me down to hear at a deeper level the PLAN that is not my plan but that is what my life is all about; being present to these three encounters this week. The power of consenting and Welcome Prayer-ering! THANK YOU to all you my WoW companions!
