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The tone of my this week is “abiding” “open” “tender mercy of God” surrounded by the many kindred spirits of my past including Martin Luther kind. I could not go to his speech this week , the essence of which I know by heart; no this last week of 2023, it’s the shepherds in the fields, the none persons in the then society; “abiding in the fields”; Joseph, accepting, embracing what He doesn’t clearly understand; Simeon and Anna, the hidden nurturers of society given to a hidden life of contemplation ” abiding, consenting, open, to the tender mercies of God” Like these two I am called to nurture a future of “accompaniment” which I will not be a part of , but which will further, ” incarnations of the Son of God”. It is my way of being incarnational, hidden, abiding, open, consenting. As Keating says: “a peace transcending joy and sorrow, hope and despair. This peace is rooted in a way of being … “
For someone who life has been marked by living into the “larger picture of life”, liminal womb time has been a struggle. This Advent 2023 time is not about “closing” week one, then week two…….I think Newell’s expression “liminal time between womb and birth, a time of recognizing and celebrating what is already here and always here the WHAT that births is being lived by me for which there aren’t any words just PRESENCE. My sleeping time of symbolic dreams, my participation in the Wednesday group, the presentations offered through the yearly SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST group, my chat with Rachel as she gives me a hair trim, listening/participating in the 5th-step of a thirty-five “womb time” of bruising, my walking/being walked with, with those of you who share here. In summary each breath ‘inhaling/exhaling” I am enveloped by the WHAT THAT BIRTHS . So as week two of Advent ends, I sit in this new aware ness that the border between closing and beginning, of womb and birth are blurring.
Today, a special day for Mary the Mother of Jesus, I am present to a new sense of being that began as Advent began for me with an overwhelming experience of “explosion” as I gaze upon the image this week following a powerful dream. When my alarm went off I was so present to profound joy!!!!, I prayed the Welcome prayer to honor this experience. Watchfulness this Advent is being experienced more as a receiving, being present to wonder, awe, totally beyond any experience of joy/delight I have come to know. A particularly powerful dream at the beginning of the week, my ego self, the self I think I am, and a self that I am beginning to recognize as a ME , – an explosion of wild emotion that my intellect cannot begin to understand and can only receive, perhaps akin to Mary’s YES post Pentecost. As a person often confounded by a capacity to see the wider picture before me, but not the details, this week ,figuring it out today bows into this wild explosion, as revealed in the image and my dreaming life. I can see more clearly the pathway to forgiveness, to receiving the gift of Advent 2023.
As my Examen of Consciousness unfolded this week, gazing upon the image I paused on the figure of the shepherdess. If that shepherdess is me how am I respecting the “sheep-ness” of those in my life, from the smile I offer to people that I meet in my neighborhood out on a walkabout to those are in my care, as a spiritual director, as a listener to someone’s 5th-step as …..There is a consenting to “see” as God sees, a long pause here….. I have always been drawn to the fringes, searching out the one not finding their belonging in the Church. Perhaps many years of humility, humiliation, powerlessness are smoothing the rough edges though “consenting”. Pausing now on the eve of a new liturgical year, I consent………
As I begin this week, gazing on this week’s image, in my Examen on my “sheep-ness” my eyes are drawn to somewhat detached lamb from the flock . I remember that still in the African and Asian remote areas, the shepherd breaks the leg of the wayward lamb, then binds its leg and carries the lamb his/her shoulders. Once healed the lamb knows its place in the flock.
As I end this week, listening to the suggested Keating video became an Examen of Consciousness: My days are knit together with the presence of God. On awakening “Behold , O lord , I come into your presence…,” ending : “Hide me in the shelter of your wings, guard me as the apple of your eye.” Each time I pray the Welcoming Prayer, which then may happen any number of times throughout the day. I have long know that “the Spirit cannot endure being box-in”. My waking life and my dreaming life encompass all of my real life. My dreaming experiences churn up intense feelings, at which time I prayer the Welcome Prayer as I leave all in the hands of the Indwelling Spirit. The W.P. thrusts me into this “dialogue unto death”, death to my accumulated “emotional program”, freeing energy for mutual forgiveness and in depth understanding. My great humiliation is the exposing of the errors of my ‘well/articulated/erroneously intentioned’ emotional programing. Humiliation is freeing up energy to remain more often in the Presence of God and bringing others into the SPIRIT’s PRESENCE. This week I heard in a new way, “Thank you kind lady.”
I am grateful for mages like the one this week and for my dream images. The image has two sets of quadrants. The outer quandrant number 1,2,3,4. Both the image and my dreaming, a huge movement into the sunterranean of my being. I am living one of the biggest challenges in my life, perhaps akin to being birthed. The trauma of my now being birthed is very much unconscious, quantrant 3. The kind of love I experienced following birthing and my formative years, held all the oomph layers that year after year that needed to be navigated. To get from quadrant 3 to quadrant 1, I have navigated the thin veil of despair, the key that unlocks the door to my subterranean sanctuary. The accumulation time of quadrant 3,2,4, is now being divested; it’s divesting tme, cleaning up the corners of hoarding, squirrling away. My dreaming part of my life leaves me with such intense feelings, I need to spend time in Welcoming Praying to eventually allowing me to gaze into the symbolism, to the whole picture of my life unfolding the plan that is not mine, inviting me to claim, tending the bright shoots of everlastingness, Space doesn’t allow me telling you my whole dream time. Washing my clothes, I am am achieving a relationship with my emotional self, getting rid of negative feelings, attitudes. The interview on Tuesday is taking on new meaning. This time I am totally involved with the birthing I am now going through, the birthing akin to that of when I breathed by first breath all these years ago.
Powerful pray experiences began with the image this week. I was totally enveloped by this image, spontaneously saying out loud: Oh, this is me! A wave of despair washed over me, quickly, from fear to it is okay, the blindfold, the chain, connected to the source of deep listening, position of both hands, this is my life, grounded on this earth as well as grounded and enveloped by the cosmos? by a felt sense that today I am naming as Wisdom. I met this Wisdom that came more and more alive to me with the common lectionary readings from the book of Wisdom this week, especially.( Ws 7:22-8:1) Word after word flooded my whole being, “fashioner, holy, unique, subtle, more mobile than any motion, ….” Willing to plumb new depths of despair I found the real HOPE. Twenty years ago I read, pondered, re-ponded, got friends to ponder, where we shared our pondering. The book was Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope” (Joan Chittister). Watts image brought me face to face real hope. I call George a kindred spirit. My ego self has gone through huge conversion and today is okay when huge volcanic irruptions took me right back to me childhood home, when I, the big girl, learned not to ask for help. Two powerful episodes this week, one asking a friend to bring me a 2024 daily planner from office. The city responding to a sewer problem, closed off my street. When she finally found how to get to me, I felt so responsible for her loss of time. My descent into “oh, no” was short lived when I realized this will make a great story when we gather for lunch. I can just feel the laughter, the teasing, which makes for healthy staff interchanges. The other a situation of huge injustice for fragile group of senior persons. I got the ball rolling ( no descent this time) by going to the source through an email, to get out the info we needed for a gathering next week. I hate confronting people who are remiss in their responsibilities. A few or (more than a few) Welcoming prayers in the days to come will assist my ego-self in letting go, becoming more and more okay with deep listening to the Fashioner, unpolluting, … TRUSTING the POWER of that BREATH, (Ws 7:22-8:1).
Pursuant to my initial reflection beginning this week, audio Divina ( Thick..), a 5th-step of a woman 35 years in sobriety, my continuing awareness exam of wishing well to others. Thick Nhat Hanh words: “When I hear one of these names I must respond.” My heart not yet capable of seeing and loving” , the pirate and the Mayfly come to mind, one harsh, one gentle; so is my dying ego self. The woman came bringing just her resentments. The list was very long. As we took our time walking through the list, two plus hours later there was this amazing realization, an experience akin to “Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion.” This morning out of nowhere, a woman who lived the floor beneath me in the 1990’s shows up, the pirate-me looms, the May-fly- me on the fringe. Both the woman sharing her 5th-step and me came face to face with an experience of ‘Even today I am arriving.”, each in our own way, our eyes to the Door of Compassion.(Image this week) Of course, this is my acknowledgement of what is taking place in my life. The woman who did a 5th-step in my presence, does not know my experience. Today I can wish Lorie well, wherever she is asking the Spirit to deliver the blessings she needs. Lorie who lived in the apartment beneath me all those years ago. In the Visio Divna of the door way, the earth is on both sides.
Today as I listen to Thich Nhat Hanh, read his poem and as I gaze into the beckoning open door, I continue my awareness examen begun last week that of wishing well to all popping into my life this day, this week….the word “ours” vibrating through my being, “OURS” >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My awareness examen this week ” wishing well to others, loving God in them, allowing God to love through me.” is very revelatory. I grew up where my ethnic group wasn’t the in group here, nor was it in the land they came from. We learned to be good workers, valued as such. Without drawing attention to myself, I became very competitive excelling intellectually. Of course I put this at the service education for others especially those who had no one to advocate for them. But then it became a painful habit, being competitive ruled my life to the point that it was never enough. The positive side of the coin evaluating the situation or circumstances became the flip side of being judgmental. Memories of hurting others intentionally or unintentionally revealed an unforgiving attitude/habit. A wakeup call to be merciful for “we are not own; we belong to everyone else.” Consenting, consenting….
We don’t possess our own lives. We are stewards of the life that God has given us, and for however long God continues to give us breath. This sentence popped into my awareness this week as I struggled through Visio Divina with the image and a recent dream that kept reoccurring. I am at a large gathering. I had settled into the seat that became mine. I keep doing this, then one time someone is in my seat, so I just move into another one quite near. This time I am seated dear someone whose suffering is quite evident. Non verbally my heart reaches out to him. The next time I re-enter the conference room after a break, the seat available in this section is his, so I take it. I am uncomfortable, but I seat myself in this chair. The next re-entry, there are no seats available. I try to appear unconcerned as I move farther and farther back. I slip into one of three seats available in one of the most obscure, out of the way seats, perhaps for someone auditing the sessions. In the Vision, I go down down through that inner opinging, seeking to go deep enough to become that person God is creating me to be. In another Visio I am coming up from an inner depth, coming, coming as the exterior envelops me as I consent to losing myself into a light-filled nothingness. I have spent years of my life becoming someone that God would love, only to be discovering this nothingness that I really am is what is happening as I consent to stewarting that that life whose name, who for a few chronos years is known as ADELINE. Stewarting is not auditing a life, it is giving it away according to the ONE who is fashioning it into a NO-THING. So, Adeline, more stewarting and less being someone!
I spent some time this week in a blend of the Audio Visio , beathing in and breathing out, and gazing at the image provided this week. I recall Hildegard’s self definition as a feather of the breath of God. I enter into the dance of feathers till it becomes a dervish of all sorts of feathers. I allow myself to risk plumbing the depths of joy and delight. Some feathers have the appearance of dragon flies, others flowers, others angels. butterflies. It’s a willingness to enter the dance as you are. It’s a type of body bodily consenting, just let go and enter into the dance. Joy and sorrow are life companions. In this time of sorrowing I needed this week to let joy embrace me, hold me fast till I could allow joy and delight to guide my feet. A lot of Welcoming prayer moments freed me to take the first step to enter the dance. This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving, a welcome pause to delight in grateful heart.
September 30 in Canada is Truth and Reconciliation Day. The theme of this WoW “Justice in the Kingdom of God” draws our Canadian hearts to hear into the depths of our beings Barbara Holmes words: “Our ways divide and stagnate ( up to seven generations of , the word GENOCIDE, facing the truth is takes courage and humility.) “God’s ways and evolve us.” Today we hear the invitation and let our hearts be stretched: “… actually, “walking a different way, by a path marked by connection, attraction, reconciliation, restoration and mercy.” We are on the walk of healing in a yet awkward together. Showing up is the first step. With each step, breathing in I am willing. With each exhalation, yes, I am willing. Lately I have had a new experience of being stretched, when I endured the painful contortions of having my knees/hips x-rayed. I have to trust that there is elasticity in my stony heart on the way to claiming my human heart. I have to trust the same is true for each Indigenous/settler heart walking together.
As I do sometimes, on a small piece of paper I printed : My intent is to be a compassionate listening presence, and I place it where I might see it during this week. Firstly I notice, just the desire of my intent may automatically intercept one aspect of my egoic plan for happiness. I could be aware of the depth of blessings such as delight, gratitude, serenity, affirmation; a profound experience of this is your will, O God, your plan, my little mite of contribution pales with the immensity of God’s desire (me trusting the burning bush, kind of experience). I take the time to savor. Then there have been times of catching my ego in action. The Welcome prayer bringing further light on such as ” how I can insist (spoke, unspoken) on doing things my way”. I slowly let my bottled-up breath slowly release into ” embracing this moment as it is, as I allow the words of Jeremiah 29 to settle beyond that place within where my ego can do a filibuster. I savor those moments of serenity this week.
