To Risk the Future . . .

Each of us stands at the gate of tomorrow, facing the future. At times we have walked in wonder and awe, at other times, we have moved along in the flood of fear. Looking back, we may recognize that amid the joys and the struggles of this journey, we have been companioned by a grace-full Presence that has held us together and led us on. This is not simply a journey through a string of days and years. Rather, this is a sacred journey, one that is held in and surrounded by Mystery. Although we long for someone to translate the risks of this journey into logical explanation, we often find ourselves in the foreign land of faith. We stand on the edge of our hopes and dreams and ask in trust to be led and supported by a Love and Energy much larger than we can imagine. We ask to walk here in courage and integrity, as we attempt to discern the voice of God amid the cacophony of our doubt and fear . . .

To risk the journey and face the future is simply to walk in faith, for there are no linear words that capture the massive Mystery of God. We stand . . . clothed in grace and showered with blessing  . . .  both in our knowing and in our unknowing, we are escorted into tomorrow by Love, who gives us everything we need

Used with permission
Author: Doris Klein, CSA
Source: Journey of the Soul
Adapted for this posting

The Divine Gardener . . .

Story:  A woman went into a marketplace, looked around, and saw a sign that read “God’s Fruit Stand.”  “Thank goodness. It’s about time,” the woman said to herself.
She went inside and she said, “I would like a perfect banana, a perfect cantaloupe, a perfect strawberry, and a perfect peach.”  God, who was behind the counter, shrugged and said, “I’m sorry.  I sell only seeds.” (John Shea)

In the northern hemisphere, spring has arrived and is struggling to consistently entertain the warm winds of the south.  With only the slightest caress of a lukewarm breeze upon the face of wannabe gardeners, the garden centers are experiencing “flash mobs” of “earth-mid-wives.” People buy flower or vegetable plants and then invite the challenge of nurturing the plants with just the right amount of water, sunlight, or fertilizer so that one day they will rejoice in their accomplishment of growing their own vegetables and beautiful flowers.  Gardens can be seen in flower boxes outside windows, on rooftops among skyscrapers, and even in large fields shared by a community.

However, God offers us only seeds – this process takes longer, more tending, patience, and the gift of surprise.  I’d like to think that God was the first organic gardener who did not use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.  Organic gardeners think of the whole system – the soil, water supply, the people, wildlife, and even the insects.  Organic gardeners are concerned about building healthy soil and nurturing the connectedness of all things.  And so it is with the Divine Gardener – offering us seeds of hope, integrity, risk, resiliency, dreams, purpose, passion, and call.  It is up to all of us to offer these seeds just the right or best environment for germination so we will carry on the creativity and love of the Divine Gardener – and we need not be perfect at this – just willing!

So what is the Good News for us today?  Let us ponder these quotes:
·         The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?  Jack Kornfield

·         Help us to be ever faithful gardeners of the spirit, who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers.  May Sarton

·         An ordinary favor we do for someone or any compassionate reaching out may seem to be going nowhere at first, but may be planting a seed we can't see right now. Sometimes we need to just do the best we can and then trust in an unfolding we can't design or ordain.
Sharon Salzberg

·         Love is the seed of all hope. It is the enticement to trust, to risk, to try, to go on. 
 Gloria Gaither

·         Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed.  Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders. Henry David Thoreau

 

Previously posted

Earth, be our teacher . . .

Treat the earth well.  We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
-- Native American Proverb

In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.
-- From The Great Law of The Iroquois Confederacy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunset. Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy... But anywhere is the center of the world. -- Black Elk

Catherine ~ Woman of Vision, Woman of Courage . . .

April 29, the feast day of St Catherine of Siena, a lay Dominican,

 Doctor and Reformer of the Church

St. Catherine of Siena was the 25th child of a wool dyer in northern Italy.
She started having mystical experiences when she was only 6, seeing guardian angels as clearly as the people they protected. She became a Dominican tertiary when she was 16, and continued to have visions of Christ, Mary, and the saints.
St. Catherine was one of the most brilliant theological minds of her day, although she never had any formal education. . Her spiritual director was Blessed Raymond of Capua. St, Catherine's letters, and a treatise called "a dialogue" are considered among the most brilliant writings in the history of the Catholic Church.
She died when she was only 33, and her body was found incorrupt in 1430.

Sarcophagus of St. Catherine of Siena - Rome, Italy

Catherine’s Prayers:

• You, God, are a fire that always burns without consuming. You are a fire consuming in its heat every compartment of the soul’s self-absorbed love. You are a fire lifting all chill and giving all light. In Your light You show me Your truth. You’re the Light that outshines every Light. You, God, give the mind’s eye Your divine light so completely and excellently. You bring lucidity even to the light of faith. In that faith, I see my soul has life, and in that light, I receive You who are Light itself. 

• God is a bright ocean that distills and reveals hidden truths so that my soul has a better understanding of how to trust Love, and the water is a mirror in which You, Eternal Trinity, give me knowledge.

• I want you to be a tree of love, grafted into the Word who is love, Christ crucified – a tree with its roots in deep humility. If you are a tree of love, sweetly rooted, you’ll find the fruit of patience and strength at the tips of your branches, and crowned perseverance nesting within you. You’ll find peace and quiet and consolation in suffering when you see yourself conformed with Christ crucified. And so, by enduring with Christ crucified, you’ll come with joy from much war into much peace. Peace! Peace!

Emmaus ~ "Aha"-lleluia!

 

This Sunday’s Gospel is the account of the disciples walking to Emmaus.  After the experience of the crucifixion of Jesus, they headed out of town ASAP!  They were disappointed, disillusioned, disoriented, and disbelieving of the women’s message of Jesus’ resurrection. They expected Jesus to do great things and overtake the political and religious leaders – their hopes in Jesus were sealed away in the tomb with a two ton rock positioned at its entrance.  

As they were walking, they were extroverting, debating, and probably taking part in “global-whining” as to what they had recently experienced with shock and terror in Jerusalem. Along the road, Jesus meets them and they are described as having eyes cast down and hearts slow to believe. In other words, these disciples were probably experiencing their own unique form of post traumatic stress. But it is Jesus who gets them to attend to what they experienced, to recall and remember what was written in the Scriptures, and to stir up their juices of empowerment once again.  The rock was slowly being moved from their hearts, and  their eyes were gently opening to the Mystery that was walking with them.  Then, noticing that it was nearly evening, they asked Jesus to stay with them, and they would chip in for the supper at the near-by inn.  

It was then at table, in the blessing of the bread, and it’s being broken and shared once again, that they recognized him.  And what’s more, they noticed that their hearts were on fire!! I am told that someplace it is written that the Jews at that time believed that there was a “connection” between one’s eyes and one’s heart – So eyes cast down leads to sad and slow to believing hearts.  Yet, in the presence of the blessing and bread breaking – their eyes were opened and their hearts were set on fire! Jesus – “aha” “aha-lleluia” – He is alive – just as the women said! So they set out at once to return to Jerusalem, and “the rest is history” as the saying goes.  

So what is the Good News for us?  “There are times when we too have our hopes and expectations disappointed. We may feel that God has not treated us fairly or has abandoned us, and we are left in a state of bewilderment and confusion. Our challenge then is to accept, perhaps with difficulty, that God has not abandoned us, but is leading us to a new understanding of what our life is about. To a greater or less extent an experience of disorientation is inevitable until we get our bearings again.” (Source Unknown)

Sister Helen ~ bread baker sharing her bread!

Emmaus ~ journey into light and fire!

Emmaus Journey by Irene Zimmerman

All was chaos when he died.
We fled our separate ways at first,
then gathered again in the upper room
to chatter blue-lipped prayers
around the table where he’d talked
of love and oneness.

On the third day Cleopas and I
left for the home we’d abandoned
in order to follow him.
We wanted no part of the babble
the women had brought from the tomb.
We vowed to get on with our grieving.

On the road we met a Stranger
whose voice grew vaguely familiar
as he spoke of signs and suffering.
By the time we reached our village,
every tree and bush was blazing,

And we pressed him to stay the night.
Yet not till we sat at the table
and watched the bread being broken
did we see the light.
 

 

 

(previously posted)

We lift our hearts . . .

Photo by sjh

Disturb us, O God,

when we are too well pleased with ourselves,

when our dreams have come true

because we have dreamed too little,

when we arrived safely

because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, O God,

when with the abundance of things we possess

we have lost our thirst

for the waters of life.

Disturb us, O God,

to dare more boldly,

to venture on wider seas

where storms will show your mastery;

where losing sight of land,

we shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back

the horizons of our hopes;

and to push into the future

in strength, courage, hope and love.

~ attributed to Sir Francis Drake

Photo by jf