Author: acrosthwaitoutlookcom

Lost and Late

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How could this happen? I know where I’m going but I’m lost and going to be late!

I’m back in Paris visiting my family and it’s my first school pick-up day. I’m due to meet my youngest grandson after school and walk him to his soccer club. I’ve done this before but today is different. I’m visiting my daughter and suddenly realize the afternoon has slipped by and I’m very tight on time. I pull out my GPS to check the shortest route. It’s different from the one I would take, but I decide to follow the magic blue line to the school. I toss on my jacket, give a quick good-bye and head off at a fast pace, mingled with a bit of jog. Will I get there on time? I dread the thought of the young boy alone with no one to collect him. I speed walk. I jog. I realize I haven’t jogged in years. I speed walk. I don’t like the GPS route but I persist in it. Finally, I’m back closer to home and near the school. I think I’ve got it! No… a few blocks on and I’m lost. My heart is racing. Where am I? Old Paris has lots of twisting streets at odd angles to each other. I have a very poor sense of physical direction and I’ve lost my bearings. Back to the GPS. Ok this way…..my time is totally overdue now. The little boy is abandoned by his Gammy. Where am I? I’m following the blue line but I never seem to get closer to the school. Suddenly I turn a corner and know where I am. I’m on Montparnasse, nowhere near the school! What’s happened? I text his father to tell him I’m lost and late and I’ve missed his son. How could I have done this?

I realized later exactly what had happened. That afternoon some anxiety had risen in me and when I realized my time was tight, I relied on an external source, the GPS rather than my own internal source. I know how to get to the school. I have a wonderful route that I follow daily that runs across main streets and winds through back streets. Conversations that afternoon had touched a deep place in me and I was a bit unsettled, off my quiet centred spot. When I saw my time was tight for the pick-up, my anxiety increased and I stopped trusting myself. From my old sailing days I know that when we move through storms it’s time to tighten our sails, sailing close to the wind, close to our inner core. I did just the opposite. I stopped trusting myself and trusted my phone’s GPS.

Eventually all was well. Dad called the school who sent someone to find his son and help him on his way to soccer. No harm happened. I learnt another lesson. A couple of quotes from a helpful teacher, Lao Tzu:

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

And ….
There is no need to run outside for better seeing. Nor to peer from a window. Rather abide at the center of your being; for the more you leave it, the less you learn. Search your heart and see the way to do is to be.  

I have what I need.

Being lost and late was a great learning experience for me. I hear God’s voice to me, “Once again Anne, slow down. Listen deep within. You have what you need. I am with you. You are not alone.”

How do you cope when you’re ‘lost and late’?

Love and prayers for the journey

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way.

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

A Little Bit of Merton

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‘I will not break faith with my awakened heart’.

This little nugget comes from somewhere in the writings of Thomas Merton. I heard it in a podcast as I was walking my regular route in Paris yesterday. I stopped walking, letting the intent of his words drop deeply into my being. As I often get tossed around by the circumstances of life, I resonated with his desire to remain true to what he knows, not intellectually but experientially, despite the challenges. So today I begin my reflection.

First, what does my awakened heart know? What ‘knowing’ do I hold, not what I’ve read or heard, but what is true in my heart? Last night I could feel this question tumbling around. I’ll see what I can catch this morning. This heart of mine has seen a spiritual image both at my bedside and as light in a theatre, has heard a voice with unexpected words and has known truth impressed within. This awakened heart knows that LOVE is at the source of all, that this LOVE dwells within all people and gives all matter life, and that in the end LOVE will be here for it is the universe’s trump card. This awakened heart knows that opening to God is the purpose of life, all of the struggles and joys down here are the classroom for learning soul lessons, so we’re open to God. This heart of mine recognizes that most people walking the planet don’t see the world this way…..yet. Most people around me are caught in the whirlwind of surviving or thriving in the turmoil of what ‘life’ has thrown at them. My awakened heart knows life as a classroom and in it, I’m a life-long learner.

I know there is more my heart knows, but I want to pause to consider the first part of his walk-stopping thought. ‘I will not break faith’. He’s crying out a desire to live from his True Self, his deepest purest part, to be his best self, yet he knows the struggle too. His will is needed. He needs to make a choice, not once, not a confession moment in church or a moment of emotional surrender, but a moment-by-moment choice over breakfast, on the subway, around the family table, in the grocery store, at the computer screen, working at a meeting, watching TV, hanging out with friends……moment by moment in the classroom, of the School of Life. Merton lived with an awareness of the life-shaping component of each moment of our lives. And he knows the struggle to remain true to what he knew.

I know that struggle too. I think that’s why his vulnerable acknowledgement and desire for truth resonated with me. I… will…not…break faith…with my awakened heart. I will remain true to who I am today wherever I’m taken in the classroom of life. I will be myself, my Mystic in Motion self, wherever Life takes me. That doesn’t mean that I speak of what my heart knows, but that I live from the heart qualities so kindness, tenderness and compassion flow through me to those I meet. My awakened heart is a divine gift, but remaining open, and nurturing it is my choice, my ‘yes’ to growing spiritual energy.

Sometimes it feels like people around me want to put a gag on me, push back and don’t want me to be myself. Recalling, ‘I will not break faith with my awakened heart’, encourages me to be rock solid with them, often not in words, but in personal energy. Sometimes words might be said, but most often it’s a shift within where I let the restraint or rejection wash around me. Rock Solid in the tumultuous river. They don’t know what they are doing to me. They don’t know how their words are affecting me. Perhaps later there will be time to connect with them more deeply, but in the moment, I’m not to break faith with my awakened heart. I am to stay within the flow of compassion.

Still mulling over this one….. et vous?

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

Rock Solid

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Ever hit a wild, whirlwind season of life? One with unanticipated twists and turns?                                                                           

This morning I was musing over the rambunctiousness of my last year, realizing there have been times when I’ve wondered just who I was and where God was hiding, but then I open my Lenten reading and found today’s picture – Ben Johnson’s ‘The Queen’s Room’. I dropped into the stillness held within the image.

Stillness. Spaciousness. Everything settles. I know who I am. And I know God’s Presence within and around me.

Stillness. I shudder at how often I’m swept up in the activity of life and loose sense of the deep stillness within. I desire to live more truly from the inner stillness of Divine Presence, to walk into a room and bring that deep peace and centredness with me as a gift to others. I desire to live open to Spirit’s flow.

Imagine a forest river making its way to the ocean. In the river is a rock, not huge, but sizeable. Sometimes, after a rainfall or in during the snow melt, the water roars and covers of the rock, but it’s still there, solid and sure. Sometimes, the river slows down, the level lowers and the rock is visible, sure and solid. Sometimes debris comes down the river banging against the rock, but it remains sure, solid, unchanging. Oh yes, after the years of water flow it still appears the same, yet even rocks are shaped by the water’s constant flow so it’s edges are softer, but it’s still rock, solid and sure.

‘The Queen’s Room’ spoke to me this morning, calling me out of the chaos of life and back to my Self. I’m a rock. In the midst of a turbulent year I’m a rock. May I live true to my Self, solid and sure, yet shaped with my rough edges softened by flow of life.

How’s your life these days?

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

Life’s Drama

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‘We cannot control our life.’

Try letting that truth sink in. Let it sink into your mind and then deeper into your heart, even into your body where you carry those hidden knots of stress. 

Sister Wendy Beckett begins her ‘Art in Lent’ reflections with that statement. Of course, I know that is true. Of course. Really? I might think I know it’s true, but living within its reality is very different.

She invited me to begin Lent with Hokusai’s painting ‘The Great Wave’. It’s so beautiful, yet so unsettling. That huge wave, the great wave that rises ready to engulf the tiny boats with even tinier people. Sometimes life erupts with a rogue wave. Something hits us that we hadn’t anticipated, hadn’t planned for, have no experience with….I bet you know some of those moments.

Right now I’m feeling the effects of a rogue wave within our family for one of our members is ill with a chronic debilitating condition and I can’t control it. I can’t fix it, or the person with it or the system around them. I don’t have any control. Well not quite. I do have control over how I will respond to it. I can go head long into it, or broadside or tack looking for the slowest spot. Perhaps I need a bit of all of that. I can be headlong with my own feelings, not avoiding them but allowing them to wash over me and through me. I can come alongside the feelings of others and be present with them letting them soak me. I can also keep myself flexible, adjusting to the daily fluctuations.

I’m not in charge of the drama on earth or within my family or my own life. There’s a popular saying on the ‘wet’ coast – there is no such thing as bad weather, only poor clothing choices. Ah yes. I’m able to make choices. Even, or especially when the rogue wave rises, I need to be flexible and make choices. Sometimes that’s easier to write about than live, but often the writing helps me live closer to the truth I know.

So begins this year’s wilderness walk during Lent. I’m feeling soaked through with the unexpected.

Love and prayers as we walk this uncontrollable journey

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

A Flicker

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Our grandmother’s home, a rambling old house with a huge garden, was a delightful part of our childhood summers. On warm August evenings, my sisters and I would take small jam jars and catch fireflies. They would flicker around one special corner of her lawn, small and harmless, delightful as they flicked their tail lights on an off. Our fun was being in their midst and perhaps catching a few in a jar. We’d only keep them for a minute and then having watched their little lights go on and off, release them again to the warm evening.

Last week I wrote about being blinded by Truth, but this week it’s about another reality, those moments that are like the flicker of a firefly. Moments are moments. So quick. They just happen and if I’m not slow enough, I’ll miss them. I believe like the fireflies, those precious moments are all around me, all the time. Will I be open to ‘catch’ them? The sunlight glistening on the raindrop hanging on the spider’s web; the light that dances through a dear one’s eye; the aroma of cedar filling the forest; the cloud passing down the mountainside; the clerk’s smile at the grocery store; the kindness of the woman on the Metro platform who asks me if I’m looking for the route to the airport; the kind invitation to go for a walk; the container of soup left on my doorstep; the line of poetry….. on and on …. Those moments that flow day in and day out, those moments that touch a place deep within.

Each flicker is precious. As Merton writes in ‘New Seeds of Contemplation’, ‘Every moment and every event of everyone’s life on earth plants something in his soul.’ Most of our moments are lost in the whirl of life. But still the Spirit continues to cast seeds. Will we catch them? And then release them? Release them so that their goodness, their holiness flows out into the world.

That’s my job, your job, our job as human beings. It’s to see the Light, to catch and release the light back into the world. Every day, all day. Catch and release. Breathe in the goodness all around us and release it again into the world.

Each moment is filled with holiness. Ah, to live within that God awareness.

Love and prayers for the journey

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

Blinded By Light

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One day, on a BC ferry, I looked up and the brilliant sunlight blinded my eyes. Even though bright sun in the winter is a rare treat to be savoured in BC, I had to close my eyes and turn away. The light was too much for me.

Have you had moments when you suddenly know something; a truth lands deep inside you, an awareness, an insight, a moment of clarity, an ‘Ah-ah’ moment, an epiphany? I’m sure you have. Suddenly we see a truth about ourselves, or someone else, or about relationships, or for some people it’s a scientific breakthrough. Mine aren’t world changing discoveries but are usually about myself or life in general. They’re special gifts, always just what is needed.

That ferry moment was another special learning. Just as I turned away from the brilliant sunshine, I often turn away from a deep truth that I’ve been shown. I might stay open to it for an instant or for a few minutes. I might hold it in my heart and mull it over on and off, even for years. Usually what happens, even if it’s a long-term mulling, is that I close the eyes of heart and understanding for it’s simply too brilliant for my ego self to remain open. Ego likes murky light. When the spiritual light is bright, the ego must surrender its dominance. One key aspect of spiritual growth is letting the ego surrender its central role, and take a more practical, needs-based role. What if I can strengthen my spiritual muscles so I remain open to the Light of Truth when it is given to me? Not pull back, but stay present, even walk into the Light, holding and owning the Truth. For some reason the Divine One has chosen to pull back the murky curtains of illusion that cover us in this world and give a glimpse into the bigger picture, the divine reality. I’m being given a Truth, with a capital ‘T’, that will move me forward as a human being. What if I remain open to that Truth?

What if?

What if you remain open to one of the truths you’ve received over the years? Can you go back and name one? And then rest in it, opening yourself to his life and energy?

This awareness feels so good to me. I don’t want to turn from the Light. I want to walk into the Light. I want to live in the Light.

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living 

“Sinners” No More

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Last week I shared an experience I had with knowing God’s love even when I had been hurtful to someone. It was a life-shaping encounter that I continue to grow into, but more about that next week. This week I’m sharing with you a blog a reader sent me in response to last week. Nadia Bolz-Weber writes eloquently of the depth and breadth of God’s love for us as shared by Jesus in the story we often call the ‘The Prodigal Son’. A real misnomer — ‘The Inexhaustible Love of God for Us’ would be closer to what he wanted us to hear. Hope this link leads you to her blog, and you take the time to read – maybe five minutes.

https://thecorners.substack.com/p/slightly-off-brand-children?r=17mo2c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Love and prayers on the journey

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire, Founder Contemplative Fire Canada

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member with Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God – Really?

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I’ve been reflecting on my experiences of God and want to share one with you. I’ve often been puzzled by the talk of sin and God’s wrath. I used to read sermons such as those by Jonathan Edwards and try to fit my belief into the box of an angry God who needed to have his wrath appeased, but I couldn’t ever fit. Here’s a story from my early life that shows why I struggled.

I closed the back door of our home, shutting Hugh out of my life, relieved that I would never see him again. I had been very cold and closed towards him that evening, yet as I closed the door, I heard a voice and felt an impression in my heart. ‘You haven’t loved your brother in Christ.’ That was all. That was it. I heard the words and knew their truth in my heart. I felt no condemnation, but knew the reality was that I hadn’t loved him. No matter what else happened in our lives, Hugh was my brother in Christ and I had been rude to him. I knew that wasn’t the way I was supposed to be living. I wasn’t walking the path Jesus was guiding me along but was veering off on my own direction. I had asked for a life companion, a husband and Hugh had been given to me yet I had rejected the gift. What would happen now? What happens when God gives you a gift and you toss it aside?

My experience of God in that moment was of understanding, tenderness, righteousness and love. God heard the negative churning in my mind, saw the decision I made and didn’t run away from me. My coldness and rudeness were seen, understood and mirrored back to me. God spoke tenderly into my mind and my heart, describing what I had done and what I hadn’t done. I was shown a glimpse of my cruelty yet also showed a different path that I was invited to walk. I’m to love. God didn’t start with me loving the whole world, but loving one person, who was my brother in Christ, one person who has faith and is wanting to walk the path of life with me. God showed me the path of loving, the path of kindness, the path that Jesus walked. It’s a beautiful path, might not always be easy but it is the path of loving.

I didn’t hear any condemnation that day. I experienced understanding, tenderness, righteousness and love. Love for me. Love for Hugh. Understanding for what might have been. Understanding for was going to be because of my choices.

I had listened to the voices of criticism that came from a place of fear, from that place deep inside me where I was taught to fear loving, that place that carts out boulders and builds walls. God saw me in that place, had compassion on me, didn’t run from me or abandon me or shut the door on me, but spoke tenderly, firmly, and wisely into my life. God is good, faithful, kind, compassionate. God knows me, knows each of us and cares.

I’ve never encountered wrath or anger, only God’s tenderness, compassion and invitation.

Perhaps this week you would enjoy journalling one of your experiences of God.

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

A Glimpse of God on Raspail

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Today I stood in one of those ‘v’ shaped intersections in Paris, France where several streets converge, some small, some busier, with the movement of cars and people everywhere. Which direction will I look to cross the street? The sidewalks are not congested but they were full of Parisiennes heading home after school and work. The sun was beginning to dip as darkness comes early near the end of the year. I’m on my daily walk from the hospital to a shop to find some thread to mend a scarf, on my way to pick up my grandson after school. I’m listening to a podcast reflecting on Julian of Norwich. My day is unfolding like many others on this family visit to Paris.

Julian and I have a bit of history. She’s my favorite Christian mystic. Over the years, several times she’s opened my heart. She was the first to show me the celestial city within me. Through her I could feel eternity, sparkling in my soul. I knew there was more to my life than the clothes I wore, job I performed, relationships around me. Oh, there was so much more. Through her writings I felt a connection to Divine and Eternity. Another time Julian showed me that God smells. Wow! What kind of God is this? So much bigger, so much more familiar than I’d ever imagined. God smells! And of course, she taught of LOVE. It’s all about LOVE. And the Hazelnut story where I’m taught the significance of everything, absolutely everyone and everything for all has its being in the love of God. After many years I’m re-reading her and listening to a wonderful podcast by a fellow mystic. Julian has been a rich teacher for me.

So perhaps today wasn’t a surprise, but when God shows up it’s always a surprise, yet not a surprise, for God is always present! Just sometimes when I catch a glimpse of what really is, rather than what seems to be, it feels like a surprise. Today I had such a glimpse. Walking along Raspail, with Parisiennes going about their daily lives, I felt myself within God. All of us, the cars, the people, the activity of Paris, all of that was within God. Not so much embraced or enveloped in God’s love as within God herself. We were God. It was a feeling of presence. The fragility of this world was gone. The unimportance/importance struggles of this world were gone. The glimpse was short, but oh, it was sweet. Like a bite of deep dark chocolate, something to be savoured.

Savoured, so I share it with you Gentle Reader. What ‘glimpses of the Divine’ have you had?  

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem

Ordinariness

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It began or did it… with a friend sharing the invitation she heard, to fall in love with God. Everyday, all day she was to live deeply in love with God. One of my teachers says that we are to love God in our daily lives; each breath is to be a turning towards God. And then there is me knowing a quiet life this year, a year of not working or doing but of having my focus on loving those closest to me. When did it begin?

I have a deck of Zen cards with beautiful images on them, and thoughtful commentaries. One day after my conversation with my friend, I asked Jesus, ‘What do I need to consider today?’ and the card I drew was ORDINARINESS. It felt alive. Yes, this is my life. I am to live each day alive in God, falling in love with God and letting that love flow into the ordinary tasks/ways of life, loving the one closest to me, loving my family circle, tending the garden, sweeping the deck, walking the village streets, greeting people, enjoying my friends, praying for the world. Each day, every day in the ordinary flow of life I am to seek and know God, living a God-soaked life. Not saving the world, not doing famous things, not writing a book that gets attention, but loving those around me, anchored in love/peace/joy so that God’s being flows through me.

That’s my call

It sounds so good. When I met my friend again and described to her my ordinary life, she cried, giving me a heartfelt, ‘Yes’. Yet…it’s so hard sometimes. Sometimes I don’t want to love my family circle. I simply don’t. It feels like hard work to value them, do things for them, and keep my heart open towards them. I want to shut myself away, I want to hide. I want to be a hermit. Other times I feel the ego that wants to be noticed, to change the world.

Over this year I hear the call from Jesus to walk in the way he walked. At this time in my life I understand that to be listening to Father/Mother, loving those around me, forgiving them, enjoying them, being present to God’s breath every day, being open to God every moment. I’m so far from that… yet I’m moving toward it. At least I hope I am.

ORDINARINESS – the picture on the card is of someone, maybe a woman, walking through a field with a basket of flowers, trees in blossom all around her. Yes, the open air, the beauty of nature, my place on the planet. Finding beauty in the simple bits of life – in feeding our new granddaughter, sharing meals with family, tending a garden, cooking, planning a trip – letting all of life be sacred. Let me live easily, one step at a time, one day at a time. An ordinary life. A sacred life.

When did this call to an ordinary, sacred life begin? I think it’s always been there and finally I’m beginning to pay attention.

Dear Reader…your life too is sacred.

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member with Shalem