Sunday April 24: Resurrected Presence

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[excerpt from email]: Practice: Resurrection always follows death. In this guided audio meditation below (about seven minutes), Julie Saad, a long-time Centering Prayer practitioner, student of Thomas Keating, retreat leader and author, invites us to die to the self and simply rest in the awareness of “I Am” without words. This recording was created for the Practicing the Presence online course. What do hear for your journey now?

 

Down from the mountain. I am reminded of the Transfiguration. For a few brief moments, the three apostles saw a resurrected Christ. Peter wanted to stay up there on that mountain. But Jesus had other ideas.  He started back down the mountain to do “the work of the world”. I can imagine him saying, “Okay, guys, come on. We have work to do. “. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. talked of being on the mountain top, seeing the promised land. But he came down from that mountain so that he could enter the promised land – not alone- but with his sisters and brothers.  “Together we rise. “

Lovely.  Thank you, Julie and Pamela.

Simply resting, at peace, safe,  at home , below the abdomen. Just prior to this visio-ing  the image, my hand extended ….. just about to touching Jesus’ wounds.

I felt a lightness. Thoughts came and went. I was fully aware that I was there, but somehow behind the thoughts. I felt…anchored, yet light and free. Marlene OSB

Thank you Julie for this guided meditation.   And thank you for  posting this Pamela. I didn’t hear it end…time passed.   I was quiet.

Sunday April 24: Resurrected Presence

What do I hear in the silence for my journey now? Breakdown can be break through if I can see new life struggling to emerge, within me and within our world. Father Richard’s “we want transformation without cost” aligns to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s concept of “cheap grace”. That first breakdown to break through was terrifying and freeing at the same time. It allowed following transformations to proceed with more of a memorial service for my old life. Lord, keep me every transforming to Your glory and my joy. Amen. <3 linda

Did it end?  Did I end?  I have done the meditation twice. Both times I ended up in a big empty space that was free of attachments. I felt no need to get up and “do something”. Is this what death feels like?  I wonder.

“ Terrifying and liberating”:  a description of resurrection, Christ’s; ours;  mine. A paradox that silence can hold.

“Abiding in my I AM this week, I recall a foundational experience, some 50+ years that pops into my awareness. In guided imagery God was like a huge prairie willow on the edge of a prairie slough. Now a slough is a land indentation where melted snow collects in the spring and often dries up my July. Among the natural prairie shrubs that spring up here are our prairie willows. All those years ago now, when prompted, in reply to the question, where/who are you, I was a very small willow, so very close to the big willow. Here I know I am safe, thrive. Abiding in my I AM experience this week, I am totally  emmeshed in the big willow, the big I AM, that is my little<i>  I AM that I am</i>. Here I am safe, protected, one in union with my purpose as it is is unfolding in the plan of the big I AM. (Imagine the print of my I AM is very very small with respect the print of the big IAM; in fact, I am connected with many so many other little I AM’s in the big I AM. The color is varying shades of green; other little I AM’s are a rainbow arrange of color.

Thank you all for your deep reflections.  I am motivated to listen to this guided meditation again after my 20-month-old granddaughter departs after a week long visit. She is nothing but I AM – fully and authentically herself as a radiant smile, a total dramatic meltdown to the floor, and everything in-between.  Nothing lasts for long … the flow continues.  – Pamela

Wounded Hands:  when I look at the image, I see hands, wounded hands, intertwined hands. Each reaching for the sun, each realizing that they can only touch that sun if they rise together, that both death and resurrection must be understood as universal human experiences.

Yesterday afternoon,  as the C.P. gathering was drawing to a close, the Spirit stopped me in my tracks, so to speak, with this phrase from Illia:” which is why the chaos of our times is, in a strange way, a sign of hope; something new being born within.” I am having a Thomas moment: this current chaos, cannot be a sign of hope!!! and so I wait, behind my barricade, in disbelief… open….waiting…..

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