How surely gravity’s law, strong as an ocean current, takes hold of even the strongest thing and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing – each stone, blossom, child – is held in place. Only we, in our arrogance, push out beyond what we belong to for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves in knots of our own making and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again to learn from the things, because they are in God’s heart, they have never left God.
This is what the things can teach us; to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that before she can fly.
--Rainer Maria Rilke
For Pondering:
- Where and when do you experience yourself rooted in the Earth?
- Where in your life do you sense that you are in need of grounding?
- How in your life do you honor the changes, movements, and subtle shifts of the seasons?
- What have you learned from your experiences in life that are in “God’s heart”?
- Have you ever had to learn from “falling” and trust in your own “heaviness” of life’s challenges and gifts?
Photos courtesy of S. Doris Klein, CSA
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