I’m getting stronger as I walk the mountain road behind my home. At first, I needed to catch my breath several times but now I can walk the whole way without pausing. Slowly. Step by step. A gentle pace, but I can do it. I’m learning to climb my mountain.
When I began my Christian journey although I had a delicious outpouring of God’s love, I ended up in a legalistic world of correct behaviour and doctrine. Years later I re-discovered grace and experienced again, in a more integrated way the warm embrace of acceptance. Now into the fifth decade of my journey I’m returning to a world I left behind in 1971. I have a strong base in my Jesus experience which is rooted in both scripture and mysticism, and now from that base camp I’m exploring what other faiths have taught over the thousands of years.
One of the pieces that I hear is that there is room for both action and grace. Knowing God’s grace-filled loving presence and saying ‘yes’ to that, I’m also invited into whole-hearted devotional commitment to God reflected in daily life. There are ways for me to learn and to practice that will lead me deeper into my life with God, within God. I have things to learn about climbing the spiritual mountain. I wonder if I’ve been on autopilot and now am being invited into hands-on flying.
In some of the other traditions I find a strong devotional heart and intentional practice that goes deeper than either the early legalism I encountered or the monastic structures of my later life. I’m invited to be an active co-participant in life. My daily choices make a difference to the whole universe. I’m not to be passive, receiving the gifts and grace of God, but asking with assurance as a child, for them. ‘Reveal yourself to me’. And intentionally structuring my days to live a selfless, devoted life.
Perhaps there is a sense that familiarity breeds contempt. Have I heard these things within the Christian world and not accepted them, or not to the depth I do now? Possibly, yet I smell I different aroma as wander through many traditions. I see the millions of people over the millennium who have searched for answers, hungered for purpose, and found pathways to God. They have worked hard and said ‘Here is a pathway.’ They have sought to learn to climb mountains and walk in deep valleys while engaged in Spirit Life.
I’ve held to a rhythm of life for the last ten years, and now I hear an invitation to a more intentional shape to that rhythm. Time to put on some crampons and head more deeply up the mountainside. So much to learn. So many ways to grow. Sometimes I feel like I’m just beginning.
How’s your climb going? Are you living on autopilot or intentionally? Are you climbing with me?
Love and prayers from a Mystic in Motion
Anne
Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire
Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder
I’ve been reading Huston Smith’s work from the late 1950’s on world religions. I wonder what would have happened in my life if I had found him in my search in 1970’s! He is speaking to the questions that I was asking: what do we want, what is the purpose of life, why are we here? He looks at the major faiths and how people have wrestled with these same questions over thousands of years. I so often felt alone in my questions, but clearly I wasn’t. I was part of a huge stream of people that search out meaning in life and that’s what gives birth to religion as a solid part of human society. As I dip into the expansive spiritual world he describes, I feel at home, and hear so many faith traditions connecting us all. It feels good.
I’ve also been reading Isabel Wilkerson’s latest book ‘Caste’ and it troubles my heart. I realize it’s from an American perspective and to read a Canadian version would be instructive, but I have enough ties to America to know connection to that story and considering their place in the world it’s an important book. I haven’t finished it yet, so I’m still digesting, as much as I can what she documents, but so far she’s begun to outline the social structure that is deeper than racism, that subjugates one human to another in brutal and binding ways. In the last section I read she traces the origins of caste in both India and America to their spiritual roots. Both countries used their holy books to justify the ranking of people and the resulting control of a dominant group. It’s chilling.
to hear his whispers and sense his movements. I want my spirit to be sensitive to Jesus and to all his friends, the ones both alive and who have left us, all who draw us closer to the source of all life, to what we call God.
attuned to the whisper of Jesus. I think I’ll ask him to help me. He’s really good at helping his friends.
Does that ever happen to you? We think we must leave some mega footprints on the beach of life, whereas we’re just to live simply, lightly with small footprints. Some part of my untended ego wants to expand jobs and make them bigger, wants to save the world. I think it just wants to be noticed and hugged, but it feels it will only get attention if its noisy, or BIG, or IMPORTANT.
My words grew out some mindfulness meditations from Thich Nhat Hanh. I’ve been doing an online course from him and realized I needed to do it a second time. (It’s one that Sounds True offers: Body and Mind are One). This time I’ve laid aside my knitting so I can take notes. My mind wanders less when my hand holds a pen and puts marks on paper!
Last week a friend shared a dream where she was in the kitchen of a retreat centre watching people rush to serve leftovers to retreatants. The leaders rushed into the kitchen, grabbed leftovers from the fridge, tossed them into the microwave and hurried out to serve them to the retreatants. “No!” she shouted within herself. She wanted them to slow down, cook a meal and properly serve people. But the retreatants felt they were full, nourished and happy with the microwaved leftovers. All was well. Even though she wanted to give them a carefully prepared home cooked meal, they were well satisfied with leftovers. God was in the leftovers.
Spirit.
Mystic in Motion 