There is in us an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of creative power. We seek to awaken in ourselves a force which really changes our lives from within. And yet the same instinct tells us that this change is a recovery of that which is deepest, most original, most personal in ourselves. To be born again is not to become somebody else, but to become ourselves.
~ Thomas Merton
I have carried this book 7 Sacred Pauses in my handbag for months – I was invited to a contemplative retreat where this is the tool used to frame the rhythm of prayer and I wanted it to be familiar. If I posted here everytime I’ve copied out a passage of the book in my journal I would have breached copyright by now – pulled it out on the bus, in my lunch hour, waiting on someone to show up… incidental rather than disciplined sacredness but it sings to my soul and I highly recommend it (if you’re into that sort of thing).
Macrina Wiederkehr, Seven Sacred Pauses, .p62
Gently lay your hands upon your lips, longing for the grace to speak only words that are helpful this day. Remember the words that you have already spoken. You cannot take them back. Bless them and let them go.
O Word Made Flesh, stand guard at the gate of my mouth. Be my voice this day that the words I speak will be healing, affirming, true and gentle. Give me wisdom to think before I speak. Bless the words in me that are waiting to be spoken. Live and abide in my words so that others will feel safe in my presence. Surprise me with words that have come from you. Oh, place my words in the kiln of your heart that they may be enduring and strong, tempered and seasoned with love and resilience. Give me a well-trained tongue that has been borne out of silent listening in the sanctuary of my heart. May my words become love in the lives of others.
TYPE 2
p.156 Everything that happens is our expression of Holy Will, from the birth of a star in a distant corner of the milky Way to your hand turning a page of this book. In theistic terms, everything that occurs is God’s Will. God’s Will is not mysterious or removed from us – it is expressed in what is occurring right now and what will occur in the next moment, in every corner of the universe. Even though human actions may be out of synch with Being, from a nondualistic perspective even those events are part of God’s Will. Everything that happens, then, is what God wants to have happen.
p.158 The solution to human destructiveness does not lie in trying to regulate or eradicate it but rather with connecting to a dimension within ourselves in which such behaviour does not make any sense.
Just as it is an immense presumption to assume that what is happening externally should not be happening, so it is also an immense presumption to assume that what we are experiencing is not what we are supposed to be experiencing: that we should not be angry at our partner or unsympathetic toward our best friend, for instance, or that we should be more open and enlightened and not caught in some emotional state or other. Out of this kind of evaluation of our own experience we then set about trying to manipulate ourselves so that our experience is otherwise. This propensity to be constantly tinkering with what’s going on with us s one of the characteristics of the personality.
p.159 When we perceive reality from this perspective, we know ourselves to be participants in the Holy Will of the universe. We know that each of our lives is an expression of God’s Will. When we are in alignment with this reality, we know that we are being moved rather than being the mover. Moving with the current of what is happening both inside ourselves and outside of ourselves is what the other name for this Holy Idea, Holy Freedom, means. Holy Freedom is the understanding that we’re only free when we do not resist the flow of what is – when we do not resist God’s Will. What we call free will is choosing to align with what is or to resist it, and in time we see that only by surrendering to what is are we truly free.
Holy Freedom, then, is Holy Will perceived from within our human experience. Holy Freedom means seeing that your personal will and the will of the universe are inseparable. Rather than needing to assert what you want or manipulating reality to conform to how you think it ought to be, which is the will of the personality and a central characteristic of the Ennea-type 2, when you perceive through the lens of Holy Freedom you understand that real freedom is being able to surrender to the flow of what is happening, both inwardly and outwardly. Ultimately the more you perceive reality objectively, the more clearly you see that even the notion of having your own personal will is a delusion of the personality.
p.160 …you find that having your own way is really a matter of surrendering to your inner truth. Your way is following the thread of your own experience. It is not a matter of choosing or not choosing it, your way is something that is given to you. It is the road you are walking on, the landscape you are travelling through. You discover that it is a huge relief not to feel that the territory you are crossing should be different than exactly how it is for you.
Reflections on “Making Space” – Pohl
KEEPING PROMISES
Important to follow through on commitments that have been made – big or small – be explicit.
The practice of patience and accompaniment – what is the bigger picture we are all called to?
Commit to a slow process and working it out together.
Vanier – more I live in community life, most problems are never resolved but with time and listening stop being a problem… but there’s always another problem.
Listen. See it out in the open àlooks different.
Truth-teller to yourself – ask others to do that. What is the agenda? Is keeping the promise for me or for you?
Miss the value of what is different when we try and colonise.
Ability to listen and be brave – Andreana’s blog
Dewey – all communities will fail if they don’t have a single missional purpose.
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Some of my most painful experiences in community (and most powerful and transformative experiences of grace) have been in realising a need to release myself or others of a commitment we have made – can you think of examples of this in your own life? are there ways to learn to recognise this sooner, for ourselves and others , to work for “making space” before there is hurt or a sense betrayal?
What is the bigger picture we are called to? This is to love each other well – and sometimes that means letting go. Keeping people bound to us by a promise when we should release them can be selfish or even abusive. Using language that assigns blame for break down in this scenario can add layers to that if a person feels guilt for ‘breaking’ a promise and how that affects others. If you release someone from a promise that has a completely different feeling than them ‘breaking’ the promise because they may be in a position where they feel they have no other choice. Ask them, what is the bigger picture they are being called to? It may not be leaving/breaking to go FROM something but to go TO something. Loving one another well is hearing that and supporting it to happen. How many relationships are ending in divorce because it’s so hard to negotiate loving one another well and keeping the larger picture we’re called to in view over resisting change that challenges our own point of view of how things should be. “Commit to a slow process, working it out together. Listen. See it out in the open – looks different.”
What does it mean to be a “truth-teller” to yourself? ‘I am a good person.’ Is that true?
‘I am a generous person’
‘I am a selfish person’
‘I am a good friend’
Pick a statement, one of these or your own, and spend 3-5 mins writing or thinking about the answer. Argue it. Then take the opposing statement ‘I am NOT a good person’ and argue that. Is it black and white? How much does family of origin factor in to some of your practices and responses? Expectations of others and yourself?
Is keeping the promise for me or for you? Think about this in light of the above because our motivations aren’t always clear, to ourselves let alone others.
You are you and I am me. I cannot expect, and should not try to change, you to respond in a scenario the way that I would myself. My way is not the right way it is just ‘my’ way. Try saying that aloud a few times “My way is not the right way…”
Reflections on “Making Space” – Pohl
Living into community
Cultivating the practices that sustain us.
GRATITUDE
Thou hast given me so much, give me one thing more… grateful heart – pulsing out beat of thankfulness for whatever is going on around you.
Communities that struggle are the most joyful > negro spirituals: deep pain, deep joy
We don’t know full stories – how our stories end, be happy with where we are.
Our gratitude is linked to expectations – for some people in the world to be given 3 meals a day > very grateful. Now we can eat whenever we want… it’s a given… a “norm”, we take it for granted and it will take something more/extra/different to be grateful again. Discipline of saying grace.
Have a choice to give out of our burden of wealth. Responsibility to share what we have.
Desire for things to be different vs. grateful for what we have > tension.
Where have we seen models/rituals/rhythms of gratitude done well? > noticing comes before gratitude.
Builds resilience
in the spectrum, not so bad
episode > moves
reflect, build confidence.
“This is giving your life to the one within that you know as Lord, which is a totally private matter. No one except you can judge how that is going. But if you’re not doing it, Rumi says, you are wasting your time here.” Coleman Barks. Preface, pg xv
The Way of Love is:
Love writes a transparent calligraphy, so on
the empty page my soul can read and recollect.
My work is to carry this love
As comfort for those that long for you,
To go everywhere you’ve walked
And gaze at the pressed down dirt.
Rumi says an ecstatic human being is a polished mirror that cannot help reflecting. What we love, we are. As the heart becomes cleaner, we see the kingdom as it is. We become reflected light. The polishing may be related to practices, a devotion we do everyday that is an emptying out…
What does it look like to remember who we are (our best selves) and acting from there?
What practices could we engage in that help us remember?
Drowning
What can I say to someone so curled up
with wanting, so constricted
in his love? Break your pitcher
against a rock. We don’t need any longer
to haul pieces of the ocean around.
we must drown, away from heroism,
and descriptions of heroism.
Like a pure spirit lying down, pulling
its body over it, like a bride her husband
for a cover to keep her warm.
Longing
Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is, suffer the pain.
Your desire must be disciplined,
and what you want to happen
in time, sacrificed.
Don’t let yourself forget that God’s grace rewards not only those who never slip, but also those who bend and fall. So sing! The song of rejoicing softens hard hearts. It makes tears of godly sorrow flow from them. Singing summons the Holy Spirit. Happy praises offered in simplicity and love lead the faithful to complete harmony, without discord. Don’t stop singing. Hildegard, Scivas [intro]
Hildegard’s profound self-doubting was, however, the very root of her vibrancy, because it was matched with an equally acute certainty in God the merciful and mysterious. The English Romantic poet John Keats called this tendency “Negative Capability”, when a person “is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” [p.7]
Humans are heavenly and earthly. We’re heavenly beacuse our rbight souls think rationally, and we’re weak earth-based because we also know dark lusts. The more a person notices and accepts the good in themselves, the more they love God.
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression in unique.
And if you block it, it will never exists through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is: nor how valuable it is: nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate YOU.
Keep the channel open…
No artist is pleased…
There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
~ Martha Graham
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