Trust What is Emerging

No matter what your work, let it be your own.

No matter what your occupation, let what you are doing be organic.

Let it be in your bones.

In this way, you will open the door by which the affluence of heaven and earth shall stream into you.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you are here unfaithfully with us,

you’re causing terrible damage.

If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love,

you’re helping people you don’t know

and have never seen.

Is what I say true? Say yes quickly,

if you know, if you’ve known it

from before the beginning of the universe.

~Rumi

I know I can get caught up so easily in planning, in trying to have some measure of control in my life that I can forget about the process itself.  Creativity is primarily about process, about the journey itself rather than the end goal.  The spiritual life is much the same, which is one of the places creativity and spirituality intersect: in tending to and celebrating the process of becoming. We don’t ever arrive, at least not in this lifetime. We continue to unfold and flower and emerge.

What does it mean to let what we are doing be organic, to be in our bones?  Being organic means to allow your own process to unfold. To hold plans and expectations lightly and notice where your energy and prayer are taking you.  It means being open to the subtle ways that God shapes and transforms us moment by moment, listening deeply for the call of the Spirit leading us forward into our lives.

In our active creative work, it means letting the work shape itself, tending to how Spirit is at work there and allowing the process to guide us.  One of the reasons the arts can be such a powerful vehicle for prayer is that they are a means of discovery.  In the process of art-making we discover new things about ourselves and about who God is for us.  We encounter our blocks and resistances, our joys and hopes, our fears, what makes us feel passionate, vital, and alive.  Welcome them all in as wise guides.

In our prayer, being organic means trusting what is emerging.  Trusting that what comes next will be revealed in its own time, in God’s time, which is always much slower than what we hope for.  Yet, the work of the Universe unfolds gently, never rushed.  A baby takes nine months to form in the womb, imagine what kind of work and time the sacred art of living requires.  Being organic means making space and time to be in touch with your most authentic self and then living from that reality.  It means being faithfully here and opening your loving to God’s loving, as Rumi wisely instructs.

Organic living is not a life of certainty or control.  It means relishing in the God of play and surprise, of tenderness and passion.  It means trusting that your intuition and dreams have wisdom far greater than what your thinking mind can manage, and that they know things long before they can be articulated.

Does this ring true?  Do you know it in your bones?  Are you here faithfully with us?

Then say YES quickly!  Open the door and let the affluence of heaven and earth stream into you.

-Christine Valters Paintner (sacredcenter at aol dot com)