3 Comments

Starting conversations again in months remaining

Posted by Nate on April 2, 2013 in Reflections 2013

I’m going to start something. Something big… a rush of reflections if you will.

I came to a realization that life is getting serious. Well, I guess it has always felt pretty serious, but even more so these days. Here I am at the threshold of beginning a career in hospital chaplaincy. I am committing to this path. Our family is making our first real move together in September. Our time until then will be lived as fully as possibly. Working our asses off, yes (so we can have some savings for the summer and the move)… but we want to take as much time as we can to be intentional with our loved ones here in Bend and with ourselves. Serious, I know.

This, on top of the desire I have had for so long to revive my writing. It used to be so full and come so freely, but I think it had more to do with committing the time. After marriage and a baby, not so much desire for writing. Well, Kat has committed to an evening job a few nights a week so I am going to commit to writing.

And starting conversations.

So here is what I am going to do, and what I ask of you.

  • I am going to go back to posting regularly. Hopefully every day, not necessarily long, not necessarily short. Sometimes quotes, sometimes stories, sometimes short reflections. My hope is to engage. 
  • I am burned out with what blogging has become… links to as many things as possible, distractions, photos, etc. etc. I will keep my linking to a minimum and use photos when I am inspired.
  • Content? Most likely thoughts on fathering, nature, school bus driving, transition, the mystical experience, Celtic spirituality, spiritual direction, relationships, Christ… all the good stuff.
  • I would love your comments, your own reflections, thoughts, wonderings, and questions.

So if you made it this far, find the subscribe link on the home page and subscribe through your email. I would really love to engage with folks here.

Love always.

Permalink
4 Comments

I’m sorry… it does exist.

Posted by Nate on September 25, 2012 in Community, Quotes, spirituality

This afternoon, I was in the backyard, with some dear friends, enjoying the day and each other’s company. The dogs lounged in the sun, the bees buzzed in the sunflowers, the chickens pecking at each other and squawk, squawk, squawking. We shared a raw smoothie and got to talking about life, society, and the worldview that we bring to it.

It was then that one friend said, “All this messed up thinking, all these politicians and big businesses, this selfishness, this suffering… I’m not living in that world anymore. That is not what life is about. Life is what I make of it… all those other things don’t even exist.”

I am paraphrasing, but I think I get the general idea.

“If we can live in such a way that those negative views and ways of living don’t even enter our consciousness,” she said, “it will spread and grow and eventually the world will be a better place.”

“But suffering and pain and greed and capitalism do exist,” I said. “We can’t just act as though they don’t, can we?”

“Yes! We can… we don’t have to acknowledge their presence at all. We don’t have to engage them.”

I get these ideas, and I can imagine the logic here and how we can make a difference simply by living our “conscious” lifestyle, while the world spins madly on. But I’m not sure that it is realistic. Or practical.

Frankly, I don’t have the luxury of living as though these negative parts of our world don’t exist. I have a child. I have a wife. My life is not just about the way that I want to live it. I have to be present to other people’s depression, their suffering, their financial hardship. Daily, sometimes in my own home. I can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist or that it doesn’t effect me.

The wise elder and psychologist, James Hillman did an interview with Sy Safransky of The Sun where he talked about the insult and outrage of meditation as the means and end of the spiritual person disconnected with the world:

Safransky: You’re rather an uncompromising critic of spiritual movements and everything called “new age.” You once suggested that meditation is a fascistic activity, that people who meditate are as uncaring as psychopathic killers.

Hillman: I did once remark that meditation, in today’s world, is obscene. To go into a room and sit on the floor and meditate on a straw mat with a little incense going is an obscene act… I was saying that the world is in a terrible, sad state, but all we’re concerned with is trying to get ourselves in order…

Your question is very legitimate. I don’t want to be locked into an antimeditation position. I think every consumer – for that is what we actually are – needs a lot of neutral time, a lot of turnover time: idleness, fantasies, images, reflections, emptiness; not necessarily disciplined meditation. But when meditation becomes a spiritual goal, and then the method to achieve a spiritual goal – that’s what worries me.

Safransky: And the goal you are suspicious of is transcendance.

Hillman: Yes. The quest to flee the so-called trivia of the lower order seems misguided. Personal hangups, fighting with the man or woman you live with, worrying about your dreams – this is the soul’s order.

Safransky: What if the goal is merely a few minutes of calm?

Hillman: If that’s the goal, what’s the difference between mediation and having a nice drink? … Or writing a long letter, a love letter? … I think we’ve locked on to meditation as the main method for settling down.

It’s better to go into the world half-cocked than not go into the world at all. I know when something’s wrong. And I can say, “This is outrageous. This is insulting. This is a violation. And it is wrong.” I don’t know what we should do about it; my protest is absolutely empty. But I believe in that empty protest.

“It’s better to go into the world half-cocked than not go into the world at all.” This is it. Most of us go into that broken, hurting, economically segregated, politically divided, untruthful world every single day. Then many of us come home to it too. Then we turn on the television or check the news and there it is again. Very few of us are going to engage that world as having reached enlightenment… unaffected and un-phased. If we wait till then, or we simply stay home or drink “consciousness” smoothies with our consciousness friends, we are not being honest. See when my son is screaming and his diaper is full of shit and all I want to do is yell at him to “Shut UP!! STOP! PLEASE!” I realize that a lot of that darkness is right there inside of me… Like I said, I don’t have the luxury of pretending that the negative doesn’t exist.

Permalink
2 Comments

Embrace Submission

Posted by Nate on August 7, 2012 in Community, spirituality

As I contemplate the Way of the Modern Monk and our upcoming retreat, I keep coming back to Submission. I really do believe it is a necessary component to the spiritual life… and yet something that so many in our increasingly individualistic society are so utterly opposed to. We hear words like submission and obedience and will-less machines come to mind. We think abuse of power or bending to the ego of another.

Perhaps, our rejection of this necessary way on the spiritual journey has caused many to be stuck on the road to enlightenment or union, even in their sincere quest for for higher levels of consciousness. Many seem to be playing the same track (or no track for that matter) over and over. They are doing it for themselves or what they think as individuals is the way to go.

Find me a an historical spiritual tradition that doesn’t include some element of submission and obedience at some core level and I will give you a dollar. Ultimately, obedience is about laying aside my  desires or ego in trust of another. It could be God, a guru, a practice, a council or any number of other things. The personal choice is still the same. What I want is what (fill in the blank) wants, even if I really don’t want it right now. I choose it because my teacher has been down this road before.

I think many see the truth in this, one way or another, and yet still put walls up to the words “submission” and “obedience.” It is true there is a shadow side… rows of soldiers marching off to war, taxes paid for God-knows what, religious manipulation. There is a dark shadow to all illuminating truth. A useful tool for our discernment may be that the greater potential for good, the greater the opportunity for evil. It is the dynamic tension of paradox. We see the great evil of submission, but we forget the great good of the same. We do well to suspect, to question, to discern. But we are still faced with submission and obedience, and until we learn to embrace them, we will only go so far.

Ultimately, the spiritual journey leads to union. “I and the Father are one.” “It is not I that lives, but Christ who lives in me.” No separation. Only togetherness. Connection. Love. To move in this direction, we must have come to terms with our desire for and/or resistance towards submission.

It is the way of the Modern Monk.

Permalink
Leave a comment

Nature is the First Scripture

Posted by Nate on July 2, 2012 in Quotes, spirituality

“Sacred writings are bound in two volumes – that of creation and that of the Holy Scriptures… Visible creatures are like a book in which we read the knowledge of God. One has every right to call God’s creatures God’s ‘works,’ for they express the divine mind just as effects manifest their cause. ‘The works of the Lord are the words of the Lord.’ (Eccles. 42.15).” ~Thomas Aquinas

In our men’s work we hear often from Fr. Richard Rohr, a quote from one of our early spiritual father’s that the Nature is the first Scripture and the Bible is the second. If we can’t be in right relation with the first, we will never be in right relation with the second. I tend to agree.

It seems that it is so easy to formulate our spirituality from the books we read, the people we listen to, and the doctrines we hold… but do we stop and pause long enough to hear of the mystery that comes to us from the natural world? This is the purest and most distinct-from-ego revelation of the divine that we can encounter. It seems to make sense to start there.

Tags: , , , , Permalink
2 Comments

Listening to Heal

Posted by Nate on June 12, 2012 in Questions, Quotes, spiritual direction, spirituality

Wisdom from Rachel Naomi Remen, in Kitchen Table Wisdom:

“Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in my self and everyone else. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.

“[In a Master's class given by Dr. Carl Rogers, he shared,] “Before every session I take a moment to remember my humanity. There is no experience that this person has that I cannot share with him, no fear that I cannot understand, no suffering that I cannot care about, because I too am human. No matter how deep his wound, he does not need to be ashamed in front of me. I too am vulnerable. And because of this, I am enough. Whatever her story, she no longer needs to be alone with it. This is what will allow healing to begin.”

“Listening is the oldest and perhaps the most powerful tool of healing. It is often the quality of our listening and not the wisdom of our words that we are able to to effect the most profound changes in the people around us. When we listen, we offer with our attention an opportunity for wholeness. Our listening creates sanctuary for the homeless parts within the other person That which has been denied, unloved, devalued by themselves and by others. That which is hidden”

This is, in great part, why I am so drawn to spiritual direction and why I am so blessed to offer this gift to the community. I don’t claim to be an expert. But I do listen well, and I believe in the power of the divine to heal when we pay attention. We are all equals, all in process, all becoming. I trust this… do you? What is your experience of listening or being listened to that led to healing?

Tags: , , , , , , , Permalink
1 Comment

Entering your suffering with you – the opportunity of spiritual direction

Posted by Nate on May 31, 2012 in Quotes, spiritual direction, spirituality

“If there is any posture that disturbs a suffering man or woman, it is aloofness… After so much stress on the necessity of a leader to prevent his own personal feelings and attitudes from interfering in a helping relationship it seems necessary to re-establish the basic principle that no one can help anyone without becoming involved, without entering with his whole person into the painful situation, even destroyed in the process. The beginning of all [good spiritual leadership] is to give your life for others. Thing about martyrdom can be an escape unless we realize that real martyrdom means a witness that starts with the willingness to cry with those who cry, laugh with those who laugh, and to make one’s own painful and joyful experiences available as sources of clarification and understanding.

“…In short: ‘Who can take away suffering without entering it?’

“The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there. Our lives are filled with examples which tell us that leadership asks for understanding and that understanding requires sharing. So long as we define leadership in terms of preventing or establishing precedents, or in terms of being responsible for some kind of abstract ‘general good,’ we have forgotten that no God can save us except a suffering God, and that no man can lead his people except the man who is crushed by its [pain]... Personal concern makes it possible to experience that going after the ‘lost sheep’ is really a service to those who are left alone.” (Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer) Italics mine

One of the things that I love most about offering spiritual direction and companioning as my practice as work is that there is so much more room for responding to the movements of Spirit and less “protocol” for staying removed from people’s pain. So often, directees have left my office and I have found myself crying in compassion and sadness for their situation. How needed are those who will enter the pain with us and let us know that we are not alone.

Though Nouwen asks his question about taking away suffering by entering into it, I don’t believe that it is the director who does this. What I do believe is that the director points to and helps to notice a compassionate Source who does take away suffering and does enter into it. Healing happens… I don’t know when, who, where, or always how, but it is always a reality in the midst of our pain.

Tags: , , , , , , , Permalink
Leave a comment

Bill Plotkin’s latest… Wild Mind

Posted by Nate on May 13, 2013 in Reflections 2013, videos

Wild Mind by Bill PlotkinI have started reading Bill Plotkin’s latest book, Wild Mind (Get it HERE). So far, I love it! As some of you know, I have done a lot of work with Plotkin’s books, especially Nature and the Human Soul, from leading a 5 month community discussion, to a weekend workshop, to attending a conference, to (most significantly) using the material and tools with almost all my directees. I have found Plotkin’s work to be so usable as he brings in some very core elements of being in nature and coming into relationship with our souls.

Wild Mind moves beyond Plotkin’s core template of Eco- and Soulcentric Wheel of Human Development (which covers childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and elderhood), and moves towards a robust and nature-based view of the Self. In the book, he describes four separate facets of the Self, centered in each of the four directions. The Nurturing Generative Adult (North), the Innocent/Sage/Sacred Fool/Trickster (East), the Wild Indigenous One (South), and the Muse, Inner Beloved, Anima/Animus, Guide to the Soul (West). Each has their corresponding subpersonalities which come from our woundedness. Our Loyal Soldiers (North), Escapists and Addicts (East), Wounded Children (South), and our Shadows (West). HERE is a helpful diagram.

Plotkin feels that in order to heal our woundedness, it is essential for us to get to know and grow each aspect of the Self. In our wholeness, we embody each of the four facets at different times and we can learn to access them purposefully. In our woundedness, we tend to gravitate towards one of the subpersonalities and are often unaware that there is more to draw from or fall into.

I am only four chapters in at this point, but there is so much that is coming up for me… as is most often the case with Plotkin’s books. I look forward to writing more on the book from a more personal perspective.

I highly recommend checking out the webpage for the book, as there is a lot of helpful info like diagrams, workshops and tools for helping others.

Here is a trailer for the book, with Bill himself.

Tags: , , , , , Permalink
2 Comments

Scraping at the clay of your heart

Posted by Nate on April 23, 2013 in Reflections 2013, spiritual direction, spirituality

John O’Donohue writes in Anam Cara, “It is destructive to interfere with the rhythm and wisdom of [the soil's] darkness.” He writes of the importance of letting things that rise up in your soul sit for a while. If you were planting potatoes and someone told you that you needed to plant them deeper, it wouldn’t be so good to dig them up and replant them. Even worse if the next day someone else told you that you planted them too deep, so you dug them up again and planted them more shallowly. Nothing will grow if you keep scraping at your garden.

“People in our hungry modern world are always scraping at the clay of their hearts. They have a new thought, a new plan, a new syndrome, that now explains why they are the way they are.” O’Donohue mentions that trees grow both up into the light and down into the darkness. “Negative introspection damages the soul… You cannot dredge the depths of the of the soul with the meager light of self-analysis. The inner world never reveals itself cheaply. Perhaps analysis is the wrong way to approach our inner dark.”

We must be kind to ourselves. We must live the questions we have, as Reiner Maria Rilke writes, without seeking the answers too soon. (See the quote HERE) O’Donohue… “Life itself is the great sacrament through which we are wounded and healed. If we live everything, life will be faithful to us.”

I have had to learn this through so many years, thanks to good mentors, spiritual directors, and teachers and many humbling experiences. As I look back on my writing from even five or six years ago, I see how much I tried to think my way through things. Questions, problems, faults, woundings… I was always looking for some answer that would make it all ok so that I didn’t have to struggle with it anymore. The hardest thing to hear was, “Ok, I will sit with this for a while” and then not hear anything for days or weeks. Or, “Well, Nate, I want you to stop thinking about what you should or shouldn’t do and sit with what your heart wants to do…”

I appreciate hearing people remind me to be kind to myself, but how did I do that? Even now, when I know I need to be kind to myself, it isn’t easy. Hearing it over and over, though, helps it to stick. And so sometimes, in the midst of the questions and the struggles, the best thing is some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, or a morning with some really good coffee and bacon… or sometimes it is just going for a walk. If I can go to bed and remind myself, Nate, the problem will look different in the morning. Maybe better, maybe worse… but different. Let it sit and see what happens. This is how we keep from scratching too much at the surface of our souls. We live. We let up. We do something kind for ourselves. And we let  our hearts and our lives grow deep into the darkness and grow up into the light.

Tags: , , , , , , , Permalink
Leave a comment

Gerard Manley Hopkins – As kingfishers catch fire

Posted by Nate on April 17, 2013 in poems.prayers, Quotes, Reflections 2013

I had to post this… it’s the original reference to what I mentioned in my last post.

And the parallels are so wonderfully significant!

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As king fishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is –
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Tags: , , Permalink
1 Comment

What is your face? or place? …either way, let it flow

Posted by Nate on April 16, 2013 in Reflections 2013, spirituality

In a recent conversation with a directee, we discussed the nature of finding one’s identity… as a self, as a child of God, and as a follower of Christ. Our conversation helped me put the following core ideas together for me.

I was reminded of Eugene Peterson‘s book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. I have not read the book, but I have heard from those who read it and I find the title alone to be a transformation of thought. I am sure that it is not Peterson’s main point, but the title speaks to me of the reality of Christ’s presence in all that is. Christ really does play in ten thousand places. Not just in the church, not just in one set of beliefs or theologies, not just in one type of person. And he plays! He is not in all things to judge, to condemn (“…and the son of God did not come to condemn the world, but to save it”), to say who’s in and who’s out… he recreates. He finds joy and delight in revealing himself in the cosmos!

I also like to think that Christ dwells in ten thousand faces. Meaning that there are so many flavors and so many individual expressions of Christ’s presence. All the people I meet… Christ. I remember Jesus, himself, saying, “Whatever you did to the least of these, you have done to me.” Not to say they all use the same language for Christ incarnate. Many have a deep chasm to cross, high hurdles to climb over, when it comes to words like “Jesus,” or communities like “Christians.” What they perceive is their experience, not perhaps the reality or the true expressions of these.

So if Christ dwells in ten thousand faces, or he plays in ten thousand places, the questions I have to ask myself are, “What is my face that I show to the world? Who am I as a beloved son or daughter of God? What is my expression?” It seems to me that until I know this truth and allow it to be real in myself, I will never see it in others. I will always be prescribing a face that I believe is the right face to others. Most likely, it will look like what I think it should look like… probably me, or my set of ideals. This was one of the most difficult yet freeing things I have ever learned… how to be myself as Christ has made me to be, not to be the “Christian” that the Christians say I should be, or the “man” that the men say I should, or even the person that I idealize myself to be. Coulda, shoulda, woulda… that’s what I like to say.

Anthony De Mello teaches,

If you want to live, you must have no permanent abode. You must have no place to rest your head. You have to flow with it. As the great Confucius said, “The one who would be constant in happiness must frequently change.” Flow. But we keep looking back, don’t we? We cling to things in the past and cling to things in the present. “When you set your hand to the plow, you cannot look back.” Do you want to enjoy a melody? Do you want to enjoy a symphony? Don’t hold on to a couple of notes. Let them pass, let them flow. The whole enjoyment of a symphony lies in your readiness to allow the notes to pass. Whereas if a particular bar took your fancy and you shouted to the orchestra, “Keep playing it again and again and again,” that wouldn’t be a symphony anymore.

My wise and beautiful wife said to me yesterday, “I’m through not loving myself. I’m done with it. I am just going to love all of myself from now on. I love myself! I even love that I am weird.” She loves the flow. We all need to love the flow. We need to find that unique face of Christ that only we bring to the world, and live it… love it. The rest flows…

Tags: , , , , , , , , , Permalink
1 Comment

What we dwell on tells us who we are

Posted by Nate on April 14, 2013 in Reflections 2013

IMG_2393That last post, I would say, is an effort to dream, to give thanks, to wonder, and to celebrate. All bad comes with some good if we are looking for it. All good comes with some bad… even if we aren’t looking for it. Isn’t that so true? Our dreams, the things we dwell on (on our worst days AND our best days), reveal to us about who we are.

A friend reflected to me that he has to marvel at the reflections of some people at various events he hosts. A woman told him once that she felt that all the subjects of his pub conversations were about sex. Hmmm… I wonder what she is trying to resist. How true it is that the things we try to resist are the things we focus on the most. Sometimes we see the negative in others and the positive in our selves, or the other way around. We see the positive in others and the negative in ourselves.

She is so in shape, I have such a hard time exercising. They eat so poorly, I have made the most healthy food ever. They are so obsessed with sex, at least I can keep a pure mind. It’s so cold here, I would rather be in a place that is warm. They don’t know how to work hard and so are poor as a result, I’ve worked hard and have money to spend. Ultimately, there are attachments… physical body, food, sex, comfort, money. The things we dwell on tell us so much about ourselves.

But there are layers there, aren’t there? I obsessively read fantasy novels these days. And is it obsessively or diligently? And is it because I want to show that I have achieved something, or because I want to escape, or because I am just bored? Or maybe it is because it feels good to work my imagination and to open up a world of dragons and battles and adventure. It could be all of the above. Who knows?

When it comes down to it, we must simply pay attention. Knowledge and observation teach us much and give us freedom. Freedom to let go, freedom to move on, freedom to feel.

One more story to further illustrate my point. The family and I went and met a friend at a new coffee shop this morning. We opted for this rather than getting geared up for church. Brendan even said at one point, “Church?” Of course, there are the thoughts in my head of the need for spiritual support, the desire to worship and sing, the feeling of lack of Christian spiritual guidance in my life, the importance of Brendan being with other kids, and the fact that we would not be spending the money on coffee when I had already made some at home.

Getting out of the car, Kat laughed at the ease of going out for coffee versus going to church. “It sure is easy to get going for the coffee shop on Sunday morning that church,” she said. It’s true. We didn’t do the customary church-going family tradition of battling our way to the car, silence on the road, and smiling at the greeters. Rather, we had a date on our only free morning of the week, while enjoying the creative ambiance of this finely crafted coffee house and having good heart-to-heart conversation with our dear friend. It’s all about what we see, and as I have said so many times before, we ultimately see what we are looking for.

Tags: , , , , , , Permalink
Leave a comment

Allergies are what I DON’T like…

Posted by Nate on April 13, 2013 in Reflections 2013

After a week of allergies and a week of a sinus infection and lost voice, I realized that I do not like spring allergies. No thanks to that massive juniper tree casually tossing its spring pollen right through my front door. I do not like this. And I do not like going through roles and roles of comfy two-ply toilet paper to blow my nose when that toilet paper is supposed to be used for something else.

What I do like is sunshine and warmth on a stuffy head. I do like a warm sunny day with a cool spring breeze evaporating last nights misty showers. What I do like is the welsh terrier dog that I will have one day joining me on the deck of a crystal clear lake as the loon and red-winged blackbird sing their morning songs and I plop my worm and bobber on the lake as I smoke my pipe and don my British Barbour jacket and my wool cap. Perhaps Brendan is there with me. Brendan Arthur. I will show him the nuances of threading a nightcrawler on a hook or the proper way to reel in a Rapala floating lure. Afterwards, we will make some hot bacon to go with the coffee I drank down at the dock.

This is what I DO like.

Also, good books, some Game of Thrones, pancakes, Kat’s big hugs, laughing, rustley leaves on the ground, a cup of tea with milk and sugar, a strong beer, good honey from my own bees, birds singing, chickens clucking, Brendan making up stories with words only he knows while he is supposed to be sleeping, our cuddle couch with the partial down filling, leather, British style with a little Western flare, Thunderstorms, spiritual direction, other people’s smiles, and a few other good things.

Tags: , , , , Permalink
2 Comments

The Celtic Soul

Posted by Nate on April 6, 2013 in Reflections 2013, spirituality

I have been contemplating the nature of the soul in Celtic Spirituality for quite some time now, and as I work my way slowly and thoughtfully through John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara, I am reminded again of this very precious and beautiful gem of history. Frank MacEowen also addresses this belief in The Myst Filled Path.

The Celts believed that the body was contained within the soul. The soul extends beyond our body and reaches out to connect with other souls. In fact, all things have soul. The trees in the forest, the mountains, the hawk soaring above, the fish in the river, even the rocks under foot. The Earth herself has soul. We can connect and communicate with the soul of the beings around us.

This is very foreign and strange to our Western ears, which for so many of us have heard that the soul is contained within the body. When we were born, a soul was put into our bodies. When we die, the body decays and the soul moves on. A bit like on Loony Tunes, when the white angelic spirit wisps away from the dead character. It is very Western to think in terms of body and spirit, or body and mind. O’Donohue writes that it is the soul that connects the body and the mind. It is the soul that is connected, and connects us to, God-in-all-things.

So I have been sitting with this for quite some time now… because it really is such an incredibly different way of seeing the world and God and myself and my connection to God. I am drawn to a more mystical expression of my Christian heritage. I am drawn to the wild places, the mystery places, the times between times when the veil is thin. I am drawn to knowing Christ in all things.

This notion of the body being contained within the soul changes so many things. I now am drawn to consider how I care for that soul that is holding and enlivening everything within it. I am now faced with that deep connection that I feel in the presence of my beloved or in the magic of the sun-kissed horizon. To do damage to the soul of another being is to do damage to my own soul. Implications… consequences… connections.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Permalink
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 817 other followers