ReflectionsOriah Mountain Dreamer
The Invitation
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic,
to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, your own and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon "Yes"!
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know and how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Prelude—The Dance
What if it truly doesn't matter what you do but how you do
whatever you do? How would this change what you choose to do with your life?
What if you could be more present and openhearted with each person you met if you were working as a cashier in a corner store, or as a parking lot attendant, than you could if you were doing a job you think is more important?
How would this change how you want to spend your precious time on this earth?
What if your contribution to the world and the fulfillment of your own happiness is not dependent upon discovering a better method of prayer or technique of meditation, not dependent upon reading the right book or attending the right seminar, but upon really seeing and deeply appreciating yourself and the world as they are right now?
How would this affect your search for spiritual development?
What if there is no need to change, no need to try to transform yourself into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving or wise?
How would this affect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better?
What if the task is simply to unfold, to become who you already are in your essential nature-gentle, compassionate, and capable of living fully and passionately present?
How would this affect how you feel when you wake up in the morning?
What if who you essentially are right now is all that you are ever going to be?
How would this affect how you feel about your future?
What If the essence of who you are and always have been is enough?
How would this affect how you see and feel about your past?
What if the question is not why am 1 so infrequently the person 1 really want to be, but why do 1 so infrequently want to be the person 1 really am?
How would this change what you think you have to learn?
What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not through striving and trying but by recognizing and receiving the people and places and practices that offer us the warmth of encouragement we need to unfold?
How would this shape the choices you make about how to spend today?
What if you knew that the impulse to move in a way that creates beauty in the world will arise from deep within and guide you every time you simply pay attention and wait?
How would this shape your stillness, your movement, your willingness to follow this impulse, to just let go and dance?
Mark I. Wallace
Rather, because God and the world are one, the world's agony and loss are now God's torment as well. It is this identity of God with the poor and destitute, the primal fact of "God in Auschwitz and Auschwitz in God", as Moltmann disturbingly puts it that is the basis for hope in a fragmented world. Hope, however tenuous and fragile it appears, is religiously possible because God and our broken humanity are one. God is one of us: herein lies the basis of hope for our time.
Moltmann's affirmation of divine suffering opens new viatas into a deeper understanding of the Spirit's anguish over an endangered earth. Analogus to God in Jesus' undergoing agony and loss because humankind suffers, is the suffering God as Spirit experiences because the whole world is under siege. My point is this: as Jesus' death on the cross brought death and loss into Godself, so the Spirit's suffering from persistent environmental trauma engenders chronic agony in the Godhead. From the perspective of earthen spirituality, therefore, Moltmann's "crucified God now has a double valence: death enters into the inner life of God through the cross of Jesus even as the prospect of mass ecological death enters into the life of God through the Spirit's communion with a despoiled planet.
We see then that the Spirit is truly Christlike or cruciform because she suffers the same violent fate as did Jesus but now a suffering not a confined to the onetime event of the cross, but a continuous suffering that the Spirit experiences daily, based on the degradation of the earth and its inhabitants.
Teilhard de Chardin
The History of your Hand
Your hand contains the story of our planet's evolution. In your imagination recall the evolutionary history of our planet. In itsfirst stages planet Earth was a fiery, molten ball of metals and gases. Some of those same metals and gases are essential to the bones and blood in your hand today. Your daily vitamin and mineral bottle lists some ofthose metals essential for your life - iron, copper, zinc, manganese etc.
When, eons later, Earth cooled and formed its crust, many of the common minerals were formed. They are in your hand too.
Eventually Earth formed a nourishing layer of water upon its surface. Your entire body, including your hand, is at least 80% water. Next Earth formed its protective atmosphere, using various forms of oxygen. The blood in your hand carries oxygen to nourish all the cells in your hand and carries off all the carbon dioxide you do not need, but plants and trees do.
Next Earth gave birth to microscopic life forms. Your body is tilled with independent microscopic life forms such as germs, viruses, and microbes, many of which live on your hand's skin and beneath it. Then Earth gave birth to thought; whenever you want to express some thought or feeling you may use your hand, perhaps to type a letter, or to cook a meal or to shake someone's hand in greeting.
Finally Earth gave birth to spirituality. Your hand expresses the feelings of your spirit, as when you bless someone, hold their face so you can kiss them, or grasp the Eucharistic bread.
The entire history of the planet Earth is played out every day in your hand. Teilhard does not want you to take your wonderful hand for granted. Earth has worked its processes for four billion years of evolution to create that hand of yours. It reveals and retells its whole story in your hand.
Treasure that story as you treasure your hand.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
We live in a Closed Cycle
Imagine you are out of doors, in a natural setting.
In your imagination watch yourself exhale and inhale, With what you know about the exchange of particles, picture your exhalation being absorbed by the air and the natural things around you. Then, as you inhale, picture the millions of particles in the air that you take in, becoming part of you.
Now consider the air that has been circulating around the planet Earth. Today, for example, you are inhaling something that someone exhaled in China two weeks ago! Think of all the other places where people and nature have exhaled particles that you are now breathing in, Think too that all the natural things around you - trees, grass, plants, insects ... - are giving off particles as part of their own living processes ... You are taking these in as well.
And not only that, all the molecules that we survive on have been on the planet since planet Earth was first formed. The water system is a closed cycle ... We drink the same water that ancient fish swam in; We breathe the same oxygen that ancient vegetation exhaled; We eat the same minerals that plants have processed in their growth, maturing and demise; Our ancestors have been recycled by Mother Earth to feed new life which sustains us in turn.
During a lifetime, you have taken in particles from every imaginable thing on earth through your breathing and also through eating and handling things. We live and move and have our being in a self-sustaining system of nourishment from previous beings that existed. We in turn will nourish beings that will come after us. And the deepening consciousness grows and emerges through it all. Amazing!!!
Stay with this awareness till you realise how totally connected to the planet your body is ... You are!!!
Be grateful for the benevolent Universe that the Divine Milieu has provided for you.
(Louis M. Savary: Teilhard de Chardin – The Divine Milieu Explained)
Mary Oliver
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting their bad advice
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers ,
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to bum
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.
(Mary Oliver)
Cletus Wessels
Revelation in the context of an emerging universe:
Revelation as made known in the Book of Nature
Revelation is a dynamic relationship between God and humankind who perceive the presence of God through historical and symbolic events. Revelation is dynamic on the part of God because God is actively present, unfolding in the entire story of the universe; revelation is dynamic on the part of humankind insofar as humans actively perceive the presence of God and actively interpret God's presence in symbols and rituals. Each dimension of this definition is interrelated to all other dimensions, and none of the "pieces" can be understood except in the light of the whole definition.
... This definition of revelation finds its centre in the intimate presence of God. God's presence is understood in terms of the ongoing unfolding of the power, presence, and love of God in the totality of the universe from its first flashing forth to the rising of the sun each day and to the coming of human consciousness. This divine presence is manifested in many different ways in many different times to many cultures in many different languages and symbols and in many different religions.
This diversity of manifestations of God, in whatever names used to address God, produced a great diversity of creation stories throughout human history. But now, for the first time in human history, we have a new universe story based on our human experience and the scientific evidence of an emerging universe, and it is a story that is gradually being accepted in all parts of the literate world. Hence our definition of revelation must be broad enough to embrace the universal presence of God within the whole of the universe .
... Revelation is the presence of God, but only as perceived through historical and symbolic events and their interpretation. There are three elements in this dimension of revelation: first, as perceived; second, through historical and symbolic events; and third, their interpretation. From the human point of view, revelation is possible only insofar as the presence of God is perceived, and this perception involves a deep relationship between the presence of God and those who perceive and experience that presence.
(Cletus Wessels, Jesus in the New Universe Story, pp. 60-61.)
Pedro Arrupe
Finding God
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.
Nothing is more practical than finding God,
that is, falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.
It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you will do with your evenings,
how you will spend your week ends,
what you will read, who you will know,
what breaks your heart,
what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.
Pedro Arrupe sj 1907 -1991
Judy Cannato
MYSTERY: DARK ENERGY AND DARK MATTER
The attempt to understand dark energy and dark matter is one of the most significant puzzles that current researchers are trying to solve. Saul Perlrnutter, who heads up the Supernova Cosmology Project bluntly puts it, "The universe is made mostly of dark matter and dark energy, ;and we don't know what either of them"is."s Most of the universe, in other words, is mystery. Most of it-as much as ninety five percent-cannot been seen or touched, yet all life exists because dark matter and dark energy are there, bringing things together in wholeness or stretching them apart in ever-expanding creativity.
Many of us are uncomfortable with mystery. Mystery has to do with befriending darkness. Mystery has to do with not knowing, with unknowing, with living in unprejudiced awareness in the present moment with nothing to hold us save our trust in what is unseen. Mystery requires that we negotiate the darkness, aware of the force that holds us together, sensitive to the pull that sends us forth. Often we resist mystery of any sort, perceiving the unknown and uncertain as threats to be eliminated rather than invitations to deeper truth. Safety needs can often take precedence over spiritual needs, and orthodoxy and orthopraxis can become hiding places from which to escape uncomfortable questions and nagging doubts. We do not like the darkness! Even as we profess that God is Mystery, we resist surrendering to the intangible that we label as frightening or unreal.
Mystery calls us not only to lay down our lives, but to lay down our agendas that interfere with our call. Mystery invites us to live with wisdom, to know when to stand firm and when to take flying leaps. Mystery asks us to live in the unknown with faith and to live in the uncertain with hope, trusting in the revelation of a deeper knowing and certainty that manifests as Love.
Judy Cannato –Radical Amazement
David Whyte
Guardians
I swear I will not dishonour my soul
with hatred but humbly offer myself as
a guardian of nature
As a healer of misery
As a messenger of wonder
As an architect of peace ...
I want to know if you know how to melt into that fierce heat
of living falling toward the centre of your longing.
David Whyte
James Conlon
At the Edge of Our Longing
As we embrace the balanced experience of intimacy and contemplation within the context of the universe, we cross the threshold into a mystical cosmology of sacredness and depth; we find an engaged spirituality whereby we become one with our soul, with life, with creation and with the divine. When intimacy and contemplation is viewed from a perspective that integrates quantum physics, evolutionary science, psychology, theology and cultural analysis it culminates in an approach I now call Engaged Cosmology.
It is my hope that mystical and Engaged Cosmology discovered from experiencing the longing of soul, life, Earth and divine can become a spiritual resource whereby we view .our life in the larger cosmic context and feel a healthy sense of responsibility for the planet.
As we listen and "get a glimpse of the cosmic dance" (Merton), we realize that our longing "echoes the divine longing" (O'Donohue).
Nourished by the realization that we are engaged in a spiritual journey named by the poets, lived by the prophets, and revealed by the universe, we move forward to heal and transform the world.
In our longing for sacredness and depth we explore and experience the
• Soul, in those contemplative moments that touch the heart and prompt us to change and grow.
• Life, through opportunities to transcend anxiety and become liberated from everyday confusions, to embrace relationship and wisdom.
• Earth, in communion with creation as the source and sign of ecological harmony, balance and peace.
• Divine, as the vulnerable and receptive one, calling us into relationship and into the experience of contemplation, liberation and creation, inviting us to belong and instilling in us the courage to confront the challenge of the day.
At the Edge of Our Longing: Unspoken Hunger for Sacredness and Depth is an invitation to embark on a common journey to melt into our consciousness a cosmic awareness that draws courage from each other and enchantment from creation as we open ourselves to the surging miracle of life.
Van Gogh
To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God,
not a dead one, or a stuffed one, but a living one, who with irresistible force urges us towards more loving.
Vincent van Gogh
D. H. Lawrence
We and the cosmos are one. The cosmos is a vast living body,
of which we are still parts. The sun is a great heart whose tremors run through our smallest veins. The moon is a great gleaming nerve-centre from which we quiver forever.
Who knows the power Saturn has over us, or Venus?
But it is a vital power, rippling exquisitely through us
all the time.
D. H. Lawrence
Hopi Elders
Hopi Elders Speak
(An ancient N. American tribe about to die out)
You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is
The Hour. There are things to be considered. Where are
you living? What are you doing?What are your relationships? Are you in right relation? Where is your water? Know your garden. It is time to speak your truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside for the leader. This could be a good time! There is a river flowing very fast.It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Joyce Rupp
Dear Heart Come Home
When the time is ripe,
the vision will come.
when the heart is ready,
the fruit will appear.
when the soul is mature,
the harvest will happen.
Not to worry
about all the unspoken,
the unnamed, the undelivered.
not to hurry
the sprouts out of seeds,
the weeds out of garden.
Let it all grow.
wait for the ripening.
Yearn for the yielding
if you must,
but be patient,
trust the process.
Talk to the restlessness,
sit with confusion,
dance with the paradoxes,
and sip tea
with the angel of midlife.
Smile while you wait,
empty basket in hand,
all too eager
to snatch the produce
of your spiritual path.
Kahlil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran - A Spiritual Treasury
Nature reaches out to us with welcoming arms
and bids us enjoy her beauty; but we dread her
silence and rush into the crowded cities, there
to huddle like sheep fleeing from a ferocious wolf.
The Voice of the Master
Oscar Romero
Seeds of a New Spring
It helps now and then to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection,
no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No programme accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about:
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter
and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders -
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Archbishop Oscar Romero
Thomas Merton
From Conjectures Of A Guilty Bystander - Thomas Merton
The first chirps of the waking birds mark the "point vierge"
["the virgin point"] of the dawn under a sky as yet without real light, a moment of awe and inexpressible innocence, when the Father in perfect silence opens their eyes. They begin to speak to Him, not with fluent song, but with an awakening question that is their dawn state, their state at the “point vierge.” Their condition asks if it is time for them to "be.” He answersl "Yes.” Then, they one by one wake up and become birds. They manifest themselves as birds, beginning to sing. Presently they will be fully themselves, and will even fly.
Meanwhile, the most wonderful moment of the day is that when creation in its innocence asks permission to "be" once again, as it did on the first morning that ever was.
All wisdom seeks to collect and manifest itself at that blind sweet point. Man’s wisdom does not succeed, for we are fallen into self-mastery and cannot ask permission of anyone. We face our mornings as people of undaunted purpose. We know the time and we dictate terms. We are in a position to dictate terms, we suppose: we have a clock that proves we are right from the very start. We know what time it is. We are in touch with the hidden inner laws. We will say in advance what kind of day it has to be. Then, if necessary, we will take steps to make it meet our requirements.
For the birds there is not a time that they tell, but the virgin point between darkness and light between nonbeing
and being. You can tell yourself the time by their waking,
if you are experienced. But that is your folly, not theirs. Worse folly still if you think they are telling you something you might find useful-that it is, for example, four o'clock.
Deepak Chopra
As you sow, so shall you reap - The world is a mirror of the self.
Jesus is teaching his listeners that their actions have moral consequences. Good actions lead to good results, bad actions to bad results: That is the most common understanding of Karma. But in a broader sense Jesus is making a point about life on the spiritual path. The world is a mirror of the self. The reason that good actions lead to good results isn't that God listens in, makes a judgment, and then rewards you with a good result. Instead, action and result occur simultaneously.
There is a constant, instantaneous calculus taking place with your every thought, word, and action. Most people don't notice good or bad results unless these are dramatic, but
the world functions as a mirror down to the minutest detail. The mechanics of consciousness are set up so that inner and outer dimensions match perfectly. Why does it take Jesus
or another enlightened master to point this out? Because
the mind is so complex and human nature so multilayered
that we are easily conditioned to overlook the links between inner and outer. Separation is based on our own willingness to ignore certain images, some of them upsetting and disturbing, that the world reflects back at us. On the spiritual path, you become more willing to see what is right before your eyes-if not the eyes of the body, then the eyes of the soul.
The world is not just a mirror but a teaching mirror. It exposes you to your present situation in its entirety. When Jesus spoke of abiding in God, he pointed to the highest purpose of the world as mirror: to show you that God infuses all things so completely that nothing can be seen but him, divinity in all directions extending to eternity. You live and abide in that reality, and when you begin to see that the mirror exists, reflections that were once only about your daily existence expand to encompass the soul, which is the real you. Yet even before you catch such soul glimpses, learning to look into the world as a mirror helps to heal separation, as you see that you are included in creation, not living in some private exile outside it.
Deepak Chopra—The Third Jesus