April 11, 2009
A moving article by Ron Rolheiser on what the vulnerability of God really means.
Be still. Listen to the stones of the wall. Be silent, they try to speak your name. Listen to the living walls. Who are you? Who are you? Whose silence are you? Who (be quiet) are you (as these stones are quiet). Do not think of what you are still less of what you may one day be. Rather be what you are (but who?) be the unthinkable one you do not know. O be still, while you are still alive, and all things live around you speaking (I do not hear) to your own being, speaking by the unknown
The high priests brought many charges against him. Pilate again questioned him, saying, “Have you no answers? Look how much you are accused of.” But Jesus still said nothing. Pilate was amazed. -Mark 15:3-5 Always the beautiful answer. Who asks a more beautiful question? -ee cummings I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given
There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. The mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribeable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s Thought and Art within me, speaking
I’m the secret fire in everything, and everything smells like Me. The living breathe My sweet perfume, and they breathe out praise of Me. They never die because I am their Life. I flame out—intense, godly Life—over the shining fields of corn, I glow in the shimmer of the fire’s embers, I burn in the sun and the moon and the stars. The secret Life of Me breathes in the wind and holds all things together soulfully. This is God’s voice. -Hildegard of Bingen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fiery Spirit, Source of all creative power, Kindle your Holy Spark within me, Breathe into
Last week I had the joy of going to hear Michael Meade speak. He is a mythologist who weaves folktales, myths, drumming, and singing into his wise talks about navigating complex times. As always, as I listened to his words much stirred in me, some of which I am sure will appear in this space. One story he shared was extraordinarily simple but has been living inside of me in surprising ways: A woman once had a goldfish bowl and she enjoyed watching the fish swim around in its small space. One day the goldfish bowl needed to be cleaned
This summer I will be in Berkeley leading a weekend retreat on Praying the Hours at the Episcopal seminary CDSP. I will follow it up with a fall online course on Benedictine spirituality. Consider joining me for one or both! Here are a short interview and article about them: Summer Retreat and Fall Online Course Explore Benedictine Spiritual Practices In the midst of busy lives, time is often seen as an ever-diminishing resource, a constraint on our ability to do all that we might like to get done. But, “time can become a gift,” says Christian spirituality scholar Christine Valters
In the dead of night he suddenly beheld a flood of light shining down from above more brilliant than the sun, and . . . the whole world was gathered up before his eyes in what appeared to be a single ray of light. –The Life and Miracles of Saint Benedict by Pope St. Gregory the Great, If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances . . . The whole
Earth our Mother, breathe forth life All night sleeping Now awaking In the east Now see the dawn Earth, our mother, breathe and waken Leaves are stirring All things moving New day coming Life renewing Eagle soaring, see the morning See the new mysterious morning Something marvelous and sacred Though it happens every day Dawn the child of God and Darkness -Pawnee Prayer Dawn is the Hour of the day that corresponds to springtime — the new light spreading across the sky after a long winter’s night. What is awakening in you?
