He was there every day. How many days had they passed him by? But this day was different. Was he different? Were they different?
‘He’ was a man who had been lame from birth, living his adult life as a beggar asking for help of people as they entered the main worship place in the city. Surely those people would be kind to him. ‘They’ were two of Jesus’ closest disciples, Peter, that impetuous one and John, the one who sat close to Jesus. That day, they ‘saw’ the lame man reaching out to them and from their open, broken hearts the healing power of God moved through them to heal the lame man.
That was the Gospel in church this week. I listened as the homilist created the context for the story, drawing us into the lives of Peter, John and the Lame Man. She asked us to consider the changes in Peter from a simple fisherman to preacher/healer and how that had happened as he received the Holy Spirit and partnered with God.
She continued to develop that point, but I didn’t want to join her there. I wanted to look more deeply at Peter. I wanted to be on the beach with him when he encountered Jesus after …. after… after….he had been exposed as the superficial one, the one who betrays not for money, but for personal safety, for other’s good opinions…after the humiliating crush of his denial.
There are several resurrection stories that mention Peter. In none of them do we hear a word or reprimand or condemnation from Jesus to Peter. In the beach scene, they walk together, a bit apart from the others. Jesus reaches to him in love, restoring him, entrusting him with ministry.
I yearned this morning… Please take us to the beach, walk us through his denial, his grief, his confrontation and reconciliation with Jesus. Walk us into his humility. I wanted to touch his humility, to sit with him in it and experience it myself.
I believe that’s where our power connection lies. Peter and John could be vehicles of
Christ’s healing power because they had been healed themselves. They knew their own lameness and had reached out their own hands receiving healing. They had been humbled, stripped of their own layers of competency till they were open channels for the flow of Divine Love.
This morning I could feel my own layers of competency, of training, of knowledge, of understanding, of pride, and yearn that the dam be broken, that I not be bound by them. Let me crumble before Jesus as Peter did. Let me know my own weakness so that all that is left is a humble heap, a lame woman, with a hand reaching out.
Humility.
Openness to God’s Spirit.
I catch glimpses of how much quiet, internal resistance there is within me to humility. Glimpses of how I can flee from weakness and whip up a shield of competency.
May my heart be open, may my heart be broken so the divine healing power can flow through me to those in need.
Imagine with me … what if more and more of us were open, were broken, were channels of the healing power of Divine Love.
If this is interesting to you, please show support by sharing it with a friend. Let’s broaden the contemplative pathway.
Love and prayers
Anne+
Mystic in Motion
Contemplative Fire, Community Leader Canada
steady me were a sense of God’s reality, having family and friends within reach and knowing the inherent stability of my life.
After writing last week about those wonderful solid stepping stones, I found myself taking steps onto slippery stones this week. Sometimes in the middle of the night, sometimes in the middle of the afternoon I’d encounter anxiety, worry and fear. The whispers….’What have you done?!’ ‘You know the market is soft right now. Too bad you didn’t sell last year or wait till it rises again.’ And then….’Why did you buy that small, odd house? Surely if God were in this EVERYTHING would be smooth and effortless. The seller wouldn’t be difficult. The price would be cheap. The decisions on letting go of our belongings would be simple…..’.
off! When a ‘train of thought’ goes through my mind, I have a choice whether to stay on that train or get off it. One of the fruits of a meditation practice is a growing awareness of the train of thoughts that flow through my mind, and the flow of emotions that steam through me. I don’t have to stay on a particular train. I KNOW my destination. I can get off a train. There is no seat belt forcing me to stay.
intentionally purge our home. I dove intentionally into cupboards and drawers I haven’t opened in years. Boxes came out, photos got sorted, little parcels went in the mail to family members…. It’s been great!
those logs twisted together and the mud that held them in place. I began to feel a beaver dam inside me and started to wonder if there was a block inside me, a restraining wall, holding back the expression of my full self. I began to ask “What are my logs? ‘What might be holding me back from greater freedom, greater joy, greater tenderness, greater kindness, greater laughter?’.
Sometimes the veil has been lifted for me and I’ve heard something, but most often, I too sit and all is quiet from the Precious One. I love the image of simply sitting together. I believe in that simple sitting, there is power, there is a conduit of goodness into the world.
A year ago this week that I began my Sabbath Leave. As I cleared my desk and said good-bye to people, I had no idea what lay in store for me. The four months I took off from work proved to be a time of transformation in my life.
beaches…. Even though I thoroughly enjoy all those ministry/leadership things, I quickly grew to value the new experience of laying them aside and opening more deeply to being, not doing, but being.
always has been, who is the glue that holds all this together. The awareness that I was a spiritual being having a human experience took deep root within me and continues to this day. I feel connected to The Always.
if, I do return, it’s up to me to live differently, to live leaning into the Jesus I’ve met this past year. Right now, I still have my training wheels on. I’m learning to live simply, day by day.
when I sat to be still, there was simply a lot of motion. Off I went to the gym, and into the pool. The physical exercise helped focus me. I often pray or intentionally focus on a topic for each length of the pool. Ah… somewhat less conversational.
I could see the empty creches around me and experience what felt like an empty spirituality, yet I’m fine. I know so clearly that the Light I once saw outside of me and calling to me, is alive within me. Doesn’t matter where I go, or what the people are doing around me, I know the Presence of God within me. In a very real sense, I’m home wherever I am. The manger is full.
