Christianity

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

“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

Coming Home to Where I’ve Always Been

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In March of 2017 I was beginning my Sabbath leave and a three-month ‘Retreat in Daily Life’, with Jesus’s birth narratives as my starting point in prayer. Using imaginary prayer, I was sitting around the campfire with shepherds, and as the sky filled with angels I leapt to my feet. A hand lifted me through the angels and brought me off stage. I could see the whole world, and the Jesus story as a play on the world stage. I was no longer a part of it but was in the wings watching the drama unfold. Turning, I saw a door marked ‘Director’s Office’ and I was invited to enter. Inside, I knew a presence telling me to rest, for I wasn’t needed on stage.

That was five years ago. The image and message are still alive for me. My new life in BC began as an ‘off stage’, quiet life. Sometimes it got busy but then I would quieten it again. Today something different happened. I realized how being in the Director’s Office is a sacred and holy place, yet I haven’t been focused on the Director. My ears, eyes, body are always turning to what’s happening on stage. I’m here, in this fabulous, wonderful, holy place, called by Spirit to be with our Director and I’m not focused there for I’m still turning to the distractions of the world.

I’m stunned at the awareness. I need to capture that treasure and not loose it.

I feel so graced to become aware of the gift of being in the Directors Office, and the gift of realizing that I haven’t been valuing the gift, for I have continued to be distracted by the noise on stage. I know I’m repeating myself, but I need to hear the truth. Too often I let truths blow away in the wind. I want to stay present to the Director in my everyday life. My night dreams are still full of the noise on the stage reflecting how much I’m still entangled in it.

Today I turn to Jesus and speak with him…..I’m so grateful to you.  Do I try your patience? It’s been years that I’ve been in the Director’s Office and years I haven’t always respected your call. I am so sorry. I have been as a child, naughty and distracted. I want to learn to be HERE with you. The trees have told me to be still ever since I arrived. I’ve paid some attention, but not enough. Help me keep my focus on The Director. That’s my calling, to use my will, my reason, my wisdom in focusing on You, Loving One. And I know that even as my eyes wandered back into the rush of life, you never took your eyes off me, for I am your child. I have returned home to where I’ve always been, living in your Loving…..

And you Gentle Reader. Are you wandering and now ready to return home? What might be your distractions that keep your focus off your Creator?  What keeps you rushing instead of resting and trusting?

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion with the Rivendell Way

Society member of Shalem

Spiritual Growth – Forgiveness: Navigating Spiritual Swamps

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Sadness slowly welled up in my heart. Not far away, the community had built a dam to contain fresh water for the cannery. What happened instead was that further up the hill the spring welled up and created a swamp killing the natural cedar growth. They made the best of a bad situation. Realizing that the ancient trees were dead, they allowed a marsh to develop and created an ecological centre with boardwalks traversing the marsh. The ancient trees stand as a reminder of what was and what could have been.

My heart’s sadness didn’t come from the marsh but from the cultural centre that has been built on the island. It is placed near the site of the residential school that held children from 1894-1974. A healing ceremony was held when the building was torn down in 2015. The cultural centre, which is the building to the left of the school, displays potlach masks and stories of the First Nations who have lived on these lands since time immemorial. It also has an historical outline of life from unknown days through first contact and into Indian Act years to present time.

Since the exposure in May of 215 unmarked graves of children in Kamloops I’ve attempted to learn more of our Canadian history. The visit to U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay was one of those opportunities. I spoke with a guardian who asked how my day was going. With honesty I replied about how I felt going through their display, acknowledging my Canadian upbringing, my lack of knowledge of their story, and my slowness in being open to learning about the sorrow. Our conversation wandered around many trails of his family experiences and mine. As I wondered about next steps, he gently and quietly said a step is into forgiveness, and the first step is to forgive yourself. He who has been hurt, speaks to me, the settler, the one on the side of those who inflicted hurt on others, to forgive myself.

The other time I heard of forgiveness spoken so deeply, intimately and quietly was from a First Nations Elder I met on Manitoulin Island in Ontario. He told stories of forgiveness, of First Nations people living forgiveness to those who had hurt them. They way he spoke was humble and authentic. He was walking the path of forgiveness. Jesus’ last recorded words as he was dying were ‘Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.’ Forgiveness is at the heart of his message to us. When I hear forgiveness from First Nations, I know they are speaking God’s truth to me, and it is for them a living truth, nothing academic or theological but experiential. They are forgiving.

If we don’t walk the path of forgiveness, towards our self and all others, it’s like building a dam inside us, a dam that will cause water to plug up and kill ancient truths within us, creating a swamp. Forgiveness of our self and others is an essential ongoing step on the path of spiritual growth. Without it, something inside us dies. Life gets messy. If you want to grow spiritually, search your heart. Are you caring any grudge toward anyone? Are you blaming anyone for your life circumstances? Are you caring shame, any tiny sense of ‘not-good-enough’? Turn to forgiveness, hear Jesus’s words of forgiveness, and begin letting go of that knot inside you. Ask for help from Jesus, God, Divine Mother, Healing Spirit, help to undo that knot inside you.

Spiritual growth often starts with a sad heart but doesn’t end there.

Do you have any knots that need untying? Who doesn’t.

Here is a link to St Michael’s story and overview of residential schools. https://roadstories.ca/st-michaels-residential-school

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

Companion on The Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation

Walls

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Walls – they come in all sorts of shapes, lengths and materials, serving so many different purposes: containing flowers, guarding countries, separating neighbours, organizing farms, guiding cars, blocking noise…… Just now on TV is a show about Irish stone walls. Everywhere today I’m finding walls!

Tonight, on the drive home while listening to a podcast on the fall of ancient empires, I heard this gem that I want to share with you. Right near the end of their empire the Sumerians built a wall to protect one of their cities. There was an ocean on one side, rivers on two sides and so they thought a wall could be the final protection. Sure, lots of ancient cities or empires have been protected by walls. Like most of those walls, the Sumerian one failed too. The author said so simply…..”Walls only work as long as there is a garrison sustaining them.” That was it. I heard the truth, but not in the historical context.

Walls aren’t only outside are they? We have walls inside that divide our life into different roles and help both organize and protect us. Often, they are useful for they allow us to function in the rough and tumble of life, but they have limits. They also keep us from feeling deeply or seeing clearly or making wise choices.

Lately I’ve been thinking about a wall inside me. Truthfully, lately I’ve been feeling that wall. When I was away on retreat I began to chat with Jesus and dear Mother Mary, the Undoer of Knots, about the wall. I gave consent for them to dismantle it. In effect I told the garrison that has guarded my wall to stand down, dismissed them, sent them back home. I trust Jesus and Mary to dismantle the wall in their own slow and loving way.

I’ve known about my interior wall for many years. One of my earliest oil paintings was of a stone wall in the French countryside. When it was completed, and I sat back to consider it I realized I needed to paint another picture with the wall coming down. I am attracted to walls in nature, yet I couldn’t allow my art to express only the starkness and containment of a wall. I needed to paint, to express the wall coming down. I’ve kept those pictures and often reflected on them, feeling the openness and female power of the second image.

When I heard those words on the drive home tonight, I knew again the presence of Spirit at work in my life. I wanted to acknowledge the garrison that protected me most of my life, and once again send them home, and give consent to Jesus to do the dismantling work. It’s time for that wall crumble. I feel secure enough to stand in the world without that wall.

Walls. They have a place. But there is also a time to let them come down. God doesn’t violate us, but waits for our ask, our whole-hearted ask, longs for it. Are you in touch with any of your walls? What might be the invitation for you?

Behind the interior wall is the goodness that is in my heart and yours. Our wonderful internal, eternal beauty and light glows. Time for walls to come down. What would it be like to give consent to Jesus, to trust him to send the garrison home and begin the slow and loving crumble of the wall?

It’s a journey, not easy, never dull, always heading home.

Love and prayers for the journey

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation

Companion on The Rivendell Way

Creek Time

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The creek is pouring down the mountainside today. We always hear the creek. Even in the summer when it becomes a small stream, we can hear it from our home. The odd day in the summer I hear the highway traffic from far below us, but usually I just hear the creek flowing. We’ve had a couple of days of rain and now the creek is FLOWING! From somewhere up high on the mountain the waters come together and find the dip in the land near our home to make the journey to the ocean. It’s relentless. Always flowing. I can’t see the source, but I know the flow.

Deep inside each of us is a mountain spring with flowing waters, waters that want to move through us and out to the ocean around us. Sometimes that Source of Love within us flows freely, sometimes it’s dry as a summer creek bed. Sometimes, to let the water flow freely, boulders or old trees have to be pushed out of the way or come bounding down the creek causing their own bit of havoc. Same for us, sometimes we have old ways, thoughts, memories, tapes that need to be washed away so the Water from the Spring of Love can flow through us.

I have a song that I sing sometimes before I meditate, or as I walk the mountain road listening to the creek beneath me. It goes something like this…..

My heart is open to you.

My heart is open to you.

My heart is open to you,

Open to You, open to You

Remove the boulders, remove the barriers, remove the debris,

So your Love flows through me,

So your Joy flows through me,

So your Peace flows through me,

So your Wisdom flows through me.

So YOU flow through me

Have some fun with it. Make up your own tune, play with the words to make them your own. Let’s sing new life into us, into those around us, into the world.

My heart is open to you….

Love and prayers from a singing Mystic in Motion  

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

Society Member with Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

Companion with The Rivendell Way


			

	


			
				


	

							
Loneliness
						

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If you’re hungry, you find something to eat. If you’re thirsty you reach for a drink. If you’re lonely perhaps like many of us you berate yourself, call yourself a loser and feel bad. Sound familiar?





What if loneliness was seen just as another basic human response to an essential human need? We need food so we get hungry. We need water so we get thirsty. We need human connection, so we get lonely.





What if being lonely wasn’t a shameful or bad feeling, but a healthy human indicator that needs a response. It is your psyche saying, time to talk to someone, go outside and smile at someone, look up family or friend, time to pick up a phone. That’s all it’s saying. Let go of the other rubbish.





Last week we watched Renee Fleming interview Dr. Vivek Murthy, former Surgeon General of America on her show ‘Music and the Mind’ regarding his book ‘Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World’. I really enjoyed his presentation. One thing he did was remove the stigma from loneliness and turn it into a healthy human attribute.





What a switch.





I found his whole presentation around how to survive, even thrive as a human so helpful. When we were children no one in my world talked like he did, offering guidance on how to navigate the rapids of human life. How to be genuinely kind and thankful when the world is cruel. How to connect intentionally and authentically with image and prestige are being promoted by others. Perhaps some of you got that as a child. I didn’t. I’ve learnt a lot as I matured, but still have so much to learn. The world is turbulent right now. We need to find compassionate ways to be together, to heal past wounds and create new ways going forward. We are meant to work together. As spiritual beings we are meant to draw on the Spirit source within us, everyday, not on special days or occasions but everyday, all day.  





Got a couple of good books on the go, but then I’m ordering ‘Together’!





I’ve got something else on loneliness and friendship for you next week, but in the meantime…. Wishing you all a warm and connecting week where you draw from the Source within.  





Love and prayers





Anne





Mystic in Motion





Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire





Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder





Society Member, Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living.