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- The Facilitator, the Judge and the Three-Year Old
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Jesus is brought to the lowest place, that place where the all-loving God seems infinitely distant. He enters a universe of utter solitude, meaninglessness, and fragmentation. Like the prophet Jonah, he is overwhelmed by chaos.
—Brother John of TaizéThis is “tomb time” day for me, where Jesus and I sit side by side in the tomb.
At our local Oblete Retreat Centre, the C.P group meets Mondays at 7 pm. After our “sit” we have been listening to Father Keating’s: Hope & Redemption part one, very timely for Lent 2023. For the first time consciously, I am sensing the presence of Christ’s descent into the deep dark abyss of human suffering, of the human condition, his cry God, why have you abandoned me! He doesn’t cry out to the Father, the one who called him beloved. In his human condition, he dared to face the total alienation, abandonment from this God. Now I know he broke the barrier of total annilation. My experiences of the dark abyss have been onesof “being saved” of never having to go behind the barrier. But there has been this lingering of “what if”. I am experiencing a wordless sense of being in the Christ of the Resurrection with all at each “sit” surrounded by all in the group or in all the groups world wide. The price of my/our “what ifs” have been paid in full. Living my “give-back” years is taking on a new meaning. Jesus lived into the depths of humility/humiliation to rise is the presence of affirmation. My affirmation statement surrendering is my part, while empting is taken care of by the Indwelling Spirit.
On inhale SURRENDERING – on exhale EMPTYING
As I begin my reflections for this week, words from a John Milton poem: On His Blindness: “They also serve who only stand and wait.” have been re-echoing down through my years since I first studies this poem in my late teens/early twenties. I am in waiting phase, a significant waiting phase of “Detach me from myself, so I can give my all to you”. And so, here I sit…. with all of you……. sitting together.
I have always wondered as I gazed upon small children when suddenly something has caught their attention and they are totally lost to some inknown to me presence. It used to happened with my mother, also, in her late 90’s. She would ask me to cut her nails. As I did this she was drawn in some private space/presence unknown to me. The image this week spoke to me of this place/presence, the very young are born with this sense and the very old find themselves in this space they knew so so long ago, that place B. Roberts speaks of : “Faith, the truth of God as God is in Godself, not as God in my’self- faith that comes after seeing and not before.” This presence to the very young and later once again by the very old, this presence of light was an anymous presence all along, with rare glimpses. Aftere years of consenting and through various stages of blindness this abyss of light invites until, like my mother at 102 one breath and there she was in the fullness of light/life. This week my cousin sent me a picture of Smokee, their cat, transfixed by the play of beams of light throught the window as it made little chirping sounds of “consent”. Sending you the photo is beyond my technological self.
Some thirty years ago I participated in a ritual where a person could present her/himself for a blessing. If you chose this you named the blessing you were desiring often concluded with oil on you forehead or hands or …. My experience is that of living water welling up from some where deep within. Slowly I integrated this ritual at the end of a spiritual direction session or a 5th-step. I have been especially touched by these anonymous higher power moments, where we drink silently together. Thomas Keating mentions in “pooling our silence drinking from that well of living water”, And I add, washing over me loosening those hardened scales of my egoic happiness program. These three much over-used wells have experienced the gentle soothing blessing, cleansing, softening of the waters from this living well.
That place between the intellect and the heart is that “look twice” place of “listen to the one I love”. Sitting quietly following a huge evacuation time I am becoming more aware of the vast number I am invited to embrace and listen to in my day to day life, those I am being pointed to on the periphery where I am most at home and I quietly receive as the living Eucharist, and here I dwell…. in a prolonged A–M—E——N
The image is speaking into my life this Lent , two bird like winged creatures, rather like the Hindu Kundelini (feminine awakening figure). Facing the image, the deep brown bird-like creature seems dominant facing the white creature where there is splash of yellow light ensconced in red burning embers. I turn the image 180 degrees. The white bird-like creature is dominant, yellow flame illumines the beak, the ember have burst into intensity burning the beak of the dark brown bird. splashes of yellow light wash this white creature, lower left a woosh of light like the thrust of an airplane. A significant encounter Thursday where the interplay of yellow light ( the kind I have been seeking all my life) and the deep crucible of fiery intensity( the kind I have always avoided) came together. Wordless except for: ” the flame that burns the ego and enables to pass from fearful fragmentation to fearless fullness….) Both flame and fire encircled the discernment. We know in the marrow of our bones, we are on the path and the flame of courage in our bellies. I bow in humble gratitude for the fasting of my heart. I give over ownership to the ONE to whom it belongs.
A shiver of powerlessness, and a hint of despair when a first glance, upon opening this week’s WOW : “love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you; the invitation of centering prayer as the table of the Lord’. I avoided both, when a couple of days passed, I listened to the thought “what have I got to lose?”, now living into my 89th Lent! Something very liberating is happening. Instead of despair I fell into the abyss of God’s work of love as primal, my part is to show up, be open, be curious, declare my intent, gently return to my word. So much is changing as I engage in email follow-up with a 5th-step person, another person in a transition situation; my spiritual direction coordination ministry on the threshold of a new approach that I am called to initiate and let go….. I close this week in humble gratitude for “powerlessness”, in humble acceptance of letting go of other people’s “laundry list” and God’s plans in their unfolding state.
I am living in a strange liminal kind of space; no longer on the threshold; the beyond is not visible, the next step has been taken, dying lingers, but it is not me focusing on correcting a behavior, the correction is happening. an empowerment not of my doing, the empowerment of waiting. I have left behind “figuring it out” and I am okay; more okay than I have ever been. I am accepting the cost to the self that is not me.
This morning I joined some one hundred fifty persons gathered around on Becoming a Trauma Reformed Church.
A key phrase springs out from my lectio: when we take a clean look at what we see – stop being strangers to ourselves, we increase the number of ways we can respond to what arises”. Though this has been one of the most difficult years of my life, it’s also been an energizing experience of detachment from myself to give my all. “That clean look” has been possible by my consenting to the work of the Indwelling Spirit. Tuesday I celebrated my birthday. So much for which to be grateful. I simmer in non-dual gratitude.
Blessed those who experience the painful cracks in the house of the self, for you are blessed with the gift of humiliation that allows the grace-filled LIGHT in.
This week it seems I catch glimpses of of the power of my powerlessness. During centering prayer a constant of ever so gently returning to my word many times during my “sit” I catch glimpses of this time as God’s work. During my day I sense God, the Great Untangler of my net, with my role as accepting , responding with mercy, with forgiveness; accepting the harm I have done intentionally and unintentionally; accepting the consequences of my actions that have created barriers; humbly allowing the Untangler to do the work only the Untangler can do.
that my self centeredness
The image this week brings me into a sense of being drawn into…..that inner space of no words, a simple resting. This image for Centering prayer Wednesday was slightly askew. To the left a log boom…. an image of much of my life, keeping the logs moving slowly downstream. This Wednesday I disappeared underneath, navigating the strong current in the thickest kind of dark; image of my life these last years; suddenly I pop in the center part and I know I am in the presence of the one I have been seeking. Looking in the central part of the image, orangish brown I see the hint of a face, eyes, nose, mouth, chin and a sense of being held… a transcendent kind of awe
This has been a week where I felt held in the depths of my being. The image captured my attention. I got out a magnifying lens to peer in the depths only to find myself. Eighty nine years ago at 8 months I didn’t question the star within I was content to be loved into being, first daughter, first grand daughter. Today 89 years later the luminous figure on the donkey is me enveloped and guided by the light of the star. Surprisingly I am, too, the donkey, the being that carries a lot of other people’s stuff, often taken for granted, at the beck and call of others. Reminds me of the role of Joseph in the Incarnational unfolding. The tall figures are all my invisible support, such as this centering prayer community. Thanks for helping me recognize the star.
