Tag Archives: insight

a Narnian encounter (4)

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giant's hand[This is a continuing meditation. Part 1 is here; part 2 is here; part 3 is here]

I sit on the beach quite a while, absorbing the wordless lessons of the waves, watching the small shells wash in and out with the receding water. After a bit, the giant comes to join me. He sits down with a harrumph and digs his toes into the sand. He reaches out beside himself, smoothing the sand as if it were a blanket. He digs out a shell and turns it over in his fingers, admiring its beauty.

At last I turn to him. “I never asked your name,” I say with some hesitance, realizing that I have been happy to use him as a messenger and even as transportation, but I have not even stopped to reach to relationship. How often do I do that? How often do I place importance on utility over relationship? I turn my head to hide my embarrassment.

“They call me Cecil, they do,” he answers me.

I turn to him. “That’s very like my name,” I reply. He nods and smiles. He knows this. He seems to know my name without even asking. “Tell me about yourself.” I venture.

“I’m big,” he says, as if that is a revelation. “I’m not so good with words, but I know deep things. I feel them in my heart before they come into my head. The thinking part is harder for me than the knowing part.”

“We make a good pair, we do.” I say this almost before I think it and he smiles.

“We do,” he says. “Always, we have.”

With that reply, I find within myself a resonance. It is as if, for just a moment, I, like the giant feel it in my heart before it comes into my head. I give him a sideways glance and see that his smile has turned into a wide grin. He reaches out his hand on the sand beside me and drums his fingers. He is inviting me to play some kind of game with him that I do not know.

I put my hand on his and drum my fingers. I feel his movement beneath mine and feel its echo, its resonance, its strength as it is transferred into me. Again the knowing comes before the thinking. Cecil is not just a companion. Cecil is part of who I am – the part of me that touches deep.

The voices on the wind give conformation. Somehow I trust their truth.

This is me. This is the meeting.

[kudos to Jonathan Haidt with his metaphor of the rider and the elephant …]
[photo by Benzene Aseel per cc 2.0]

amphibious soul

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a startling frog

We are, by nature, amphibious souls. Our spirits journey on a path that is somehow parallel and somehow separate from the journey of our days.

So, how do we move forward in both? When I work at my desk, where is my spirit? When I quiet my soul sufficiently to hear the whisper of God, what happens to my work?

Is it love that drives the act of mercy, or the act of mercy that evokes my love? My tendency is to think that it is the spirit that moves the hand. But what happens when my spirit is recalcitrant? Is it possible for my hand to move my spirit?

I try this little experiment: I close my eyes and smile. When I do this with intention, I can feel my spirit expand and my soul lift in joy. The smile has evoked my joy.

So, if I am truly amphibious, there are two ways in: the way of action and the way of contemplation. Actually, I think James says this: faith and works are inextricably linked.

So, which comes first? The frog or the egg; the tadpole or the hopper? Maybe it doesn’t matter where I start – I can get there, just the same.

I close my eyes and smile. I cherish the second path, grateful for a way around my heart, when it is feeling churlish.

[photo by John Clare per cc 2.0]

Always

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circle dancingThe Holy One has need of nothing,
Not even me.
(No great surprise to anyone but me.)

Yet . . . the Holy One desires my love.

It isn’t needed.
It adds nothing to that Holy fullness.

Yet, She yearns for my gift of love.

And when I give it,
And sometimes I do,

I am more.

This dance always seems so unfamiliar
until the very end,
when I know
that I have danced it always.

1/15/01

[photo by Julie Pimentel per cc 2.0]

All Saints

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ancient hingeI stand at the top of the steps – a hundred steps, perhaps – and look out upon the morning. The sun has not yet come up, but the sky has begun to turn a lighter gray and the silhouettes of buildings and trees have sharpened, just a bit. It is quiet here, and still. No one else is stirring.

I turn and look at the large oak doors, heavy and metal-bound, that guard the entrance to the building that stands, imposing, at the top of oh, so many stairs. No one comes here, no one enters, by accident. Continue reading →

machinations

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ancient gears in a machineI am on a catwalk that rings what looks like an operating theater – tall windows to my right, dark shadows to my left. I turn and place my hands upon the rail beneath the windows and look down onto a room that is inhabited by a great machine, all levers and valves and gears and boxes that hide deeper mechanisms, chugging away together, burping steam and dripping oil.

As I look I see myself. I am connected to this machine on what looks like an exercise bike. My hands are tied to the handles, my feet are tied to the pedals and strapped to my head is a device that holds a small screen in front of my eyes. On that screen plays a message that tells me what I must do, how I must perform, what is true and important and worthy.

I have been there for so long that I nearly believe it all. I am caught in a daze of duty and effort and urgency. Peddling away – sometimes out of my own energy and sometimes just because the bike still moves and my feet are tied to the pedals. On and on I go, blindly thinking I can see. Repeating in my heart the mantras of the screen.

The me at the window seems a mere shadow compared to the me at the machine. And we are separated by this glass and soundless space. I am sad, this me at the window, soul-sad and alone. Nearly empty. Nearly a vapor with an almost hand upon the rail and an almost prayer in my heart.

Then someone appears beside me – a friend whose eyes speak kindness. She quietly reaches over and places her warm hand upon the wisp of mine and looks down into the room and whispers to me, “There is more.” My heart almost hears her. “There is more. There is more.” Her hand hugs mine. She continues to stand quietly beside me.

And the me on the machine blinks.

I blink. For a moment the screen in front of my eyes flickers. I blink and begin to breathe. I blink and begin, softly, to cry and to feel the ache in my limbs. I blink and even the me on the bike hears the whisper, “There is more.”

I try to look around, but since the screen is strapped to my head, it does not change what I can see.   Still . . . that blink . . . it has made a difference.

A deep difference.

Amen.

10 16 10

[grayscale of a photo by arbyreed per cc 2.0]

Wrapped in Cloud

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foggy trailI am walking the ridge of the mountain – at the very edge of the sky – and I am wrapped in cloud. I feel its pinprick coolness on my face. I watch it swirl and move around me – never quite within reach, but never far away. I can see the path in front of me – but not the end of the trail – not the depth of the valley below, nor the crest of the ridge further ahead. I am constrained to knowing the next few steps, and leaving the rest to faith. Not a bad lesson. Continue reading →

Whisper of Envy

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rumi 3

Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.  –Rumi

Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it. –Rumi

I’m jealous of Rumi, you know. Such delicious words, slicing through to the very heart of things, letting life ring. A clear bell of a voice – his words are not holders of knowledge, but windows to the very heart of reality. They open me. Continue reading →

Revelatory Emotions

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editing documentI must admit that I was a bit taken aback with a phrase in my last post and its implications that I might find God annoying. At such times, I am torn between honesty and the threat of heresy. Somehow, I think that God prefers honesty. In any case … in all cases … I must rest upon that very grace that sometimes seems annoying. Continue reading →

Hope dawns

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photo of dawn or sunsetThumbing through my photographs,
I stumble upon a sunrise.
Its golden glow of hope
rises again within my heart.

Or was it, perhaps, a sunset?
Same golden glow –
but where’s the hope?
The tenor of my heart is changed.

Continue reading →