Having a Rhythm of Life

Last week I had the odd experience of being a fly on the wall. I attended my community’s monthly ‘Time of Togetherness’, but was on my phone, non-identified and unable to unmute! Instead of participating verbally, I was given the opportunity to relax, be open and listen to what others were saying. I could and did, participate audibly. I valued hearing a variety of perspectives on our rhythm. It is good to hear the how deep the cord is that gently, yet strongly draws us together. Our rhythm was one of the key elements that drew me into Contemplative Fire in 2008. I was silent on Sunday, so now I’ll use some words to describe my experience of having a rhythm of life.

When I first encountered Contemplative Fire in 2008, via a DVD where the founder Revd Philip Roderick described the sacramental community, the trefoil and the rhythm of life that bound them together, I was in search for others who would keep me accountable in my spiritual life. I was an active priest, inclined to working too hard, and in a non-contemplative community. I needed help both to sustain me and contain me. I had explored traditional monastic communities and not found a match. With Contemplative Fire I found like-souled people, on a path like my own, and I was given a rhythm of life to both instruct and guide me. Fifteen years later, both the community and the rhythm continue to shape my life.  

Our rhythm is titled: Travelling Light – Dwelling Deep. It invites us to not be so wound up by the things of life, the activities of life and to draw instead from the awareness of big picture of life and harvest the inner resources of Spirit. The image of our rhythm is a trefoil, an ancient Celtic symbol that is both trinitarian and beyond. There are three leaves reflecting three guiding values with our community, prayer/study/action and all three leaves are grounded in the centre, named ‘The Wordless Space’, the Mystery at the heart of the universe, the Divine. Over the years Philip offered us different words for the three leaves: Stillwaters/The Learning Centre/Across the Threshold or A Contemplative Practice/A Creative Practice/A Compassionate Practice, each of them reflecting the core practices of prayer/study/action. With the adoption of this rhythm, our lives were to have a prayerful component that we could shape any way we liked; our lives were to have a learning/creating/teaching/mentoring component, again shaped as we were called and equipped; our lives were to be moving into deeper compassionate engagement with the world, seeking to be a change agent, an explorer, one willing to be different, always inclusive and loving. And each of these leaves, each prayerful movement, each creative venture, each compassionate engagement was to be grounded in, nourished and propelled by the Spirit of God, for each was coming from the Wordless Space, the Deep Mystery and Power of the Divine. The final added delight for me was that this rhythm is idiorhythmic, that means that each Companion’s rhythm will be distinctive to themselves and will change as they change. Here I was given structure that contained but didn’t control me. I heard this and said a resounding ‘Yes!’.

Enough words for this week! Next week I’ll put words to how my life has been shaped these last fifteen years through the rhythm embodied in the trefoil.

Do you have a guiding rhythm for your life?

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

Living Differently

This week I’ve been reading ‘This Naked Mind’ by Annie Grace. It’s always intriguing how one thing leads to another. Her book is about alcohol, it’s toxic nature and the relationship both we and our culture have to this accepted addiction. I’m reading about alcohol, yet repeatedly I hear the spiritual undertones in her message. She teaches that our attraction to something like alcohol, but it could be other substances or lifestyle choices, comes from our unconscious beliefs and views. Our relationship with an addictive behaviour doesn’t change through our conscious effort such as abstinence but through a fundamental change in our unconscious guiding beliefs. Slowly, page by page, story by story, research fact by research fact she builds her case and seeks to alter our unconscious stance towards alcohol. It has been an engaging read.

But most curious for me is the way it relates to my spiritual life. She describes her father as experiencing ‘spontaneous sobriety’. Well, me too! She takes me back fifty plus years to the time when my relationship to drugs, alcohol and nicotine got fundamentally changed. I had a using relationship with all three, and experienced three separate times of knowing they weren’t part of my life anymore, and they weren’t. There was, no vow of abstinence, no withdrawal only a deep clarity that they weren’t getting me to the life I wanted, and they were gone. No more. No pain, no suffering. I had no interest in them. Twenty years ago, I had the same experience with meat. I lost the taste for it. Now I’m clear I don’t want to harm another being to nourish my body, but in the beginning, it was simply that I lost my physical taste for it. No vow, no abstinence, simply meat was part of my life any longer.

As Grace describes the work of our unconscious, I understand more deeply the work of the Spirit within us human beings. When Spirit works, she touches a very deep part of me, that part that is often hidden, but so strong. When I experienced the ‘spontaneous sobriety’ fifty years ago, it was the Spirit working in my unconscious soul home and changing how I saw myself and the world around me. As I lived into my new life without these addictive substances and with a growing realization of Spirit’s Presence all around me, I hit a lot of bumps and judgements from my friends and family. The Different Anne wasn’t comfortable to them. They said I was judgemental. I didn’t know that I was, but I both knew what I knew, knew what I liked in this new life ….. and immediately accepted their perspective that I was judgmental. Now, so many years later I wonder if just maybe I was bumping into their discomfort. Maybe they knew in their deep core the same truth I was discovering, and they weren’t interested in listening, about addictions or about Spirit. With a deep breath I say, ‘That’s okay, for we all have our own path to walk’. But, and this is a BIG BUT, let me walk my own path. I will, to the best of my ability let you walk yours but let me walk mine. I know how I want to live. I need help to live it humbly and truly. Please help me. I will do my best to help you be you.

May we all grow in living wisely, humbly and gently from our deepest truth. Here’s a link to her site if you’re interested in more. www.thisnakedmind.com

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 Question from Thomas Merton

Last Sunday I returned ‘The Intimate Merton’ to the library. I’d renewed it four times and reached their limit! Didn’t they understand that I couldn’t read it quickly. I would read no more than a page or two a day. At times I find Merton so deep, quite cerebral and I can’t grasp him, yet I’m deeply attracted to him. Other times his words are like solid stones that sink into the depths of my being and I can’t move. They call me to a deep stillness and a hunger for  more spiritual growth. I’m a fan.

‘The Intimate Merton’ is a collection of his journal entries covering his monastic life. I followed him through his entry time joys, into the struggles with community life and writing, his desire for solitude, being given the Hermitage, struggling with that life too, of course his love affair and finishing with his astounding, awakening Asian trip. The last entry is a day or two before his unexpected death. There was so much that intrigued me and slowed down my reading, but I’ll begin with just one that caught my attention. He’s always changing, growing, asking questions and figuring things out. He questions his vocation as a monk, his life in the Hermitage and most surprising for me, he questions his mission in life. In 1967, twenty five years a monk, twenty years a best selling author, he writes, ‘What is my task? What is my mission in life?’. Gosh if Thomas Merton doesn’t know his task…..! He wrote and wrote and wrote, leaving so much for us to continue to learn from long after his death. He regretted writing so many books and thought about only ten were really helpful, most weren’t any good at all.

I found his question around task, gave me an opening to explore my own sense of mission. What am I doing here? I don’t want to get to the end of my life, look back and see the bus that I’ve missed! I want to live the fullest life as Anne that I can. Yet I’ve come to know that doesn’t necessarily mean the most public life, doing what the world would recognize as good or mission worthy. I don’t think the Divine Perspective is necessarily the same as the human one. Merton’s question is important and gets lost in the shuffle and the demands of daily living for it’s not easy to be human. If he asks it, so might I, so might everyone. Why am I here? What is my mission, my task?

Love and prayers on the journey

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member with Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

Lost and Late

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

‘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

Blinded By Light

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 in the Hands of an Angry God – Really?

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

Coming Home to Where I’ve Always Been

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

Walls

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

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