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

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


			

Loneliness

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.

Choices

I make choices. We all make them everyday.  This week I felt the cloak of judgement settle on me. Someone named an aroma of pride in me and I felt the judgement settle around me. Yes, I could smell the pride too, so I own the pride, but wrestle with the sense of judgement. I wonder if it comes from choices I make.

I was at the Blood Donor Clinic answering their long questionnaire. There is a little delight that creeps through me as I continue to check the ‘no’ boxes on the medical form. I’m 71 and I don’t take any meds. I have no underlying conditions. And yes, I can feel a bit of pride in being able to check those boxes, so when someone hinted that my pride was connected to self-righteousness I had to pause and consider.

What’s this pride about my health? What’s responsible for my health? Am I in control of it? Hardly, for partly I have my Dad’s genes and he had nothing to do with doctors till his very last years, dying at home from a heart attack at 89.  Partly I have my mom’s genes that weren’t so healthy but something inside me decided years ago that I didn’t want to follow her route, so I make food and exercise choices. Partly I suppose it’s the gift of this body for this life and in that I’m grateful. I appreciate a body that works well even as it ages. Partly I’m healthy because of genes I inherited but also because of choices I’ve made.

I think here the feeling of judgement creeps in. Some of my health comes from the emotional work I’ve done. I don’t carry a lot of emotional baggage anymore. I’m very content with my imperfections including my need to be perfect! That work reduces my stress level enormously which I’m sure leads to good body health. When something gets triggered in me, which it does, like this need to process pride, I try to clean my emotional house. I don’t like internal clutter, junk of the past that I trip over. My current lifestyle is also my choice and contributes to my health. It’s gentle, I’m open to doing more, but careful what I let in. I don’t want to overextend as I’ve done in the past. Been there done that, don’t need to do it again, but am willing to serve however I’m called. Right now, it’s that small circle I’ve written about. And I’m certainly healthy through my spiritual practices, ways of being that nourish my inner sense of Self, of connection with God’s Love, Joy, Peace and Wisdom.

I do choose to engage in spiritual practices just like I choose what to eat, but I don’t make those choices out of duty, or to look good or to belong to a group. I make those choices out of a wonderful, warm embrace of God. I feel close to something that I name as God. I know there is so much more I might experience, but I value what I have known and want more and more and more.

Possibly the core of my health is that yearning for more of God in my life, more Love, more Joy, more Peace, more Wisdom, more Gentleness, more Kindness, more Forgiveness…. I hope you know what I mean. I simply want More of MORE God. And I’ve discovered that not everyone does. For years I thought everyone needs to discover what I’ve peeked at, but I’ve come to realize that not everyone wants to peek down the pathways that I want to run down. Is that why I feel the label of judgement? I’m sort of okay now with people who don’t want to join me on spiritual cleansing paths, but maybe not completely and maybe they feel an inner judgement from me. It’s hard for me to understand why people are so caught up in the things of this life when there is so much MORE and that MORE makes this life much more wonderful. But then, I’ve only my life to live, not theirs. I need to let them live their life, walk their path and me grow in loving them just as they are. There’s room for me to grow there.

I know I feel warmth and affection toward the one that rightly named my health pride. I’m glad they did. Yet I’m also happy to make the choices that I do make about how to live my life. I wish they knew that my choices come from Love, from being loved and I kinda think they don’t know that LOVE yet as a daily life-giving fountain. That’s my basic life choice; I choose Love, more Love.

Rambling Thoughts from a Mystic in Motion

Anne

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

Society Member of Shalem Institute

 

 

The Big Beyond

I walked The Creek Path after a neighbour had done some more work on it and gasped. He had cleared off some of the forest rubble tossing it further down the cliffside, leaving me with a clear view of path. It looked more like a garden walkway than a trail through the forest.

When I started this project in March I was scraping away at the forest, the rubble on the ground, the rocks, trees, ferns, stumps and watching for the critters that live there. First Rebecca and Jas joined me as Great Quarantine Project took shape and then when John our neighbour and Master Trail Builder joined the project it literally took off. John brought his expertise to create switchbacks, his chainsaw for the trees, four-foot crowbar to move rocks and his delight in playing in the forest. Trudi and Rose have helped too with rakes and willing hands to move stones and clear the forest.

It’s not finished but there is now a clear path down the hillside from our home to the creek. What was in February rough forest is now a hillside, natural garden. The path is edged with rocks or tree limbs, with stairs at some of the steep points and even stairs that sweep gracefully around a tree trunk. It has been thoughtfully and lovingly created. I’m grateful.

As I study the different faith traditions, I see centuries of Master Trail Builders at work. My longing for a creek path is mirrored in my longing to discover the source of life, to know why we are all here on this planet, to know the purpose of life. I’ve asked those questions since I was a young girl. Smith’s book makes me feel so normal. For thousands of years humans have asked those same questions. I used to think I was odd for asking them for no one else in my home and few in my friendship circles were driven by them. He takes those questions and shows how faith traditions have approached them. My desire for spiritual knowledge is as old as humankind.

In the common desire to reach the creek, the source of life, people have discovered answers and created many pathways. Although there is diversity there is also so much similarity in the practices. Doesn’t it show a common source? I think many of the differences are cultural and historical. When I comb through the practices, I can see a path, one that allows for differences in temperaments, callings and stages of faith development. But the path is there. It’s for us to clear off the rubble so we can see it and then walk it. Some of the rubble I needed to clear away are my own theological limitations, my own western dominance worldview. Long before the western world developed, people in valleys and villages of Asia were asking the same questions I asked as a young girl in Toronto. Can I not listen to their answers and learn from them?

I needed help to reach the creek. I need help to live into the spiritual reality that I know exists. I am willing to learn from the Master Trail Builders of faith traditions, people who have been sent to us to teach us the way into The Big Beyond. There is a way to live that will align us with the spiritual reality that is bigger than our everyday existence. There is a path. I can see it. Can you? What does your path look like? Where does it take you?

Love and prayers from a Mystic in Motion

Anne

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

There’s More to That Story!

 

Sometimes a trip into town can be most surprising. Today was one of those days.

As I headed into town to do a few errands I listened to a podcast from Michael Meade with ‘Living Myth’. I didn’t know anything about him. It simply was the first one that showed on my app and the title was intriguing. Off down the highway I went and soon found myself enjoying his social commentary from a contemplative perspective. He was telling a story about three fish and nestled within that story was another one about a wise bird. Although his main social commentary was coming from these animal stories, he also was describing the role of story, folk stories and myths in human culture. He said the stories exist not for us to believe them, but to learn from them.  They are a means for one generation to teach another. Ah….will I allow myself to move from belief into learning, into transformation, into new ways, into something new being birthed????

During my first few decades within the church being a Christian involved knowing what to believe. I was taught ‘correct’ doctrine through sermons, small groups and independent study of authors who taught ‘correct’ theology. I did hours of Bible study that was shaped by commentaries with a particular perspective. I was taught apologetics, so I’d have a ‘correct’ answer to any question. It was all about belief.

What if we read the Jesus stories not to believe them but to learn from them? I was taught that it was important to believe that each detail of the Gospel stories was true. The belief in historical reality was what was important, not that I ponder and be shaped by the truth within the stories.  Later I learned to pray with the gospel stories using my imagination. Jesus became so real to me. I watched him laugh, sweat and fall asleep. I sat with him as a child and walked with him as a man. He wasn’t a storybook character, nor theological construction, nor a remote divinity. He was a real man, who knew me and cared for me. He wanted to hear my questions, my worries and my discoveries. His love for me began to change me as I allowed him to give me his wisdom.

I’m grateful for my years of scripture study. And I’m grateful too that now I can still learn from those stories, as well as the stories within different traditions. I’m grateful that I’m not constrained by specific beliefs, but allowed to constantly grow and change, held and shaped by a compassionate, loving God who I know through Jesus.

It was a great trip into town. I came home with new plants for the garden, food for tomorrow’s picnic, reaffirmed in my perspective on being a spiritual human and having found a thoughtful person who is doing his bit to bring some help into our groaning, smokey world. Of course all done keeping social distance and mask on!

Where are you at today? Learning or believing?

Love and questions from a Mystic in Motion

Anne

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

Shalem Society Member

Learning to Climb a Mountain

 

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