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- The Difference Between Centering Prayer and Contemplation — And Why It Matters
Pentecost 2022? No words… the image turned upside best expresses non-verbally – I am ensconced in the deep navy, the color of Advent; the orange, the intense heat of what I am facing in the next three weeks and beyond; never in my wildest imagination did I expect this. I know well the pathway of reordering/uplifting but this time…, I must befriend despair… . and yet, this orange presence invites to trust once again and make the journey deep, deep, into the unfathomable abyss…. that is my all… not alone and yet alone.
What does Ascension mean for me, in my life? It seems God prepared me in anticipation of this question. Out of the blue yesterday 2Cor. 12:10 caught me by surprise: ” I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships. persecutions and calamities for Christ’s sake…” I had to admit my contentment is questionable. (deep sight from the depths of my being….) Then a dream where I am driving on a road that is blocked by snow. I go around where roads are dry; I drive into this back yard. The vehicle is now a taxi; I am loading boxes, bundles of stuff into the trunk. As I am exit with the last of it all, the taxi takes off. The dream fades. So the movement into the Ascension 2022 is one of poverty, only a few items in hand. I can’t go back.” Why are you staring?” There is only forward and the invitation is detachment from my self in search of or more precisely entering into the energy of “I am content with weakness, insults, etc, for ” in my weakness I am strong”. Disbelief or it it what have I got to lose? “My Lord and my God, detach me from myself, so I can give my all to you”.
Words/phrases for my experiences of grace are: mercy upon mercy upon mercy; new spiritual awakening; energy; movement; endurance; being reshaped in my inmost being.
From a deep consolation time last weekend then through centering prayer, lectio divina, Heart intention, affirmation verses; experiencing “as our consent melts into surrender” I was drawn into a new kind of surrender in recognizing how badly I have treated others; hearing Jesus say from the cross ” forgive them they know not what they do”. This week is different, I do need to own this unloving part of me as I hear this Easter time 2022:”As I have love you, love one another”. No excuses just a huge wrapping of courage as these words tumble into the deep abyss within: “It is I who have chosen you, not the other way around”. I am drawn into a new way of knowing. of “accepting people just as they are, because I have/am experiencing Christ’s acceptance just as I am. “Walking with” in a new key. Listening to the Anonymous4, group rendering of “Shall we gather at the River” last Sunday, an introduction to ‘walking with in a new key”.
As I begin this week, I am more and more, recognizing “consent melting into surrender”. I am taking Prayer of the Heart with David Frenette. ‘Moving with the breath down to behind and below the navel’ in the Welcome prayer upon my waking this morning brought me into a body consciousness of unconditional surrender. God often prepares me through a dream. In the dream my mother who died ten years ago decided to go back to the house she called home. Initially I was happy. The second time I phoned her she was incoherent, Do make the two hour trip? Suddenly my anger morphs into helplessness. I just can’t do this all over again. I did the best I could, I can’t do this all over again. I awake. Several welcoming prayers later led to this morning. I am not repeating an older pattern. I am actually moving into a new way of being present: body, mind, heart, being; a loving kindness presence (Hesed) which includes people I find intolerable, hard to confront. I am even experience the consolation expressions of positive response to an initiative I launched. The joy of this kind of surrender is not great I have done it. No matter what happens I am on the path… where I am not in charge. I have a felt sense that following this series with David is stirring up spaces within of bodily presence.
It is confirmed, that in spite of his mobility issues, Pope Francis will be in Canada July 24-29. The focus is not the Canadian Church but on the lives of our Indigenous people who are in need of healing and of our relationship in this healing, reconciliation process. It is a significant small step in need of the committed “walking with” now and of future generations. We walk humbly…. into the grace of the moment, one breath then another. And in this walking, our settler hearts, too will find healing, reconciliation, as the dried leaves of our arrogance gently float off, are gathered and fertilize our common earth, our common home.
“the grace place” unfolds – a couple of weeks back alone in the room I hear a female voice: How may I help you? Startled!( I guess I had pushed something on my cell phone some hours before, which I am learning how to use for other than phone calls.). Last week preparing for a gathering, in an irruption of feelings I don’t like, I hear myself saying out loud: God is this a test? (I’ve never done that before). A serenity washes over me sorting out the feelings, anger, the one I dread most; a choice becoming evident, powerlessness or rise to the challenge engaging in justice, in an evolving situation: then being me, respectfully, addressing the challenge. Two days later during the gathering, perhaps a modern day, mini-Pentecost, each one named/shared their experience, felt heard, an anonymous empowering beginning to unfold; personally, a newly found courage.
I somehow wander off along the beach as the disciples half heartedly went back to fishing. From a far I see the rest of them pulling into shore; I glance at some sort of commotion but I am too lost repeating over and over the prayer that ended our Centering Prayer time last Wednesday “My Lord and my God…. detach me from myself to give my all to you; nightly dreaming washing up the shore memory after memory released through the Welcome Prayer, memories over ridden by the Spirit….
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…..
“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.
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.
A mysterious pop-in or pop-up this morning, my sharing for February 12: Beginning as such an overpowering experience of the waves I wanted to escape, but something in me prompted me to stay until it gave me its name; it’s name lamentation. I am in a swirl of lamentation, so much lamentation, named and unnamed, discombobulated, until perhaps 40 minutes later , the ebb and flow of mercy, mer-cy; I am in the strong steady embrace of MERCY. Have I been as Rilke says: to limits of my longing, where wrapped in ‘mercy upon mercy, upon mercy’ there is a path through lamentation cries of my city, my province, my country, my heart?”
Further to my sharing on Easter Sunday – ‘lamentation hangover’ has its roots in my childhood, my learned ‘hyper vigilance’ where the mitigating factors of poverty, first generation having fled unbearable situations in Eastern Europe via Argentine, many of the elders still checking out are we safe here, prairie winters so much colder than where they came from, have been played out over and over in my life since then. With each remembered situation last Sunday morning, followed by the Welcome Prayer till lay open God’s presence within, a new awareness of belonging to God and through the Triduum 2022 a deeper knowing of the gift of the suffering, death to the resurrection of Jesus. Yes, as Beatrice Bruteau says “a new new level of awareness of ‘being sent’ where this childhood ‘hyper vigilance’ is being set free. The path ahead is one of sorrowing, so much hurt that needs to be named, ‘walked with” on this path to reconciliation (to fullness of life). I am so grateful to have 50 chronos days to plumb the depths of the One kairos Easter day this 2022.
The experience of Triduum 2022 though entirely virtual, with a congregation with whom I have deep roots going back to 1977-86, drew me into the result of pandemic life, a lamentation hangover perhaps. Last night it meant I went to bed 2 hours later than normal. Unbeknown to me, this morning I turned off my alarm and promptly went in to a 2 hour dream where coming out of it I am praying the Welcome Prayer. This continues for some time in semi-sleep, till I am awaked into time after time recalling past event for which I enter into the Welcome Prayer each time. When this comes to an end I am filled with gratitude ready to begin my day, ready for the alarm. It is then I realized the over riding of the Spirit. A cursory glimpse of the photo for this week, that is Adeline on the swing. My foundational experience of God 80+ years ago; enveloped in the immense sky of changing clouds. Then there would have been no flowers as depicted by Billy Renkl. But that doesn’t mean on this day there aren’t any, But I was safe, cherished.
As I enter Holy Week, my heart is overwhelmed with lamentation, too full. The image of the cross by Van Gilder, draws me to pay attention to the movement of Holy Week 2022 in the “now-moment” as it is, consenting, consenting, …. alert, receptive, trusting receptivity (that is hard, the hard stone of control, or fear, or anger). It is not about me!!! I consent to being absorbed in the unfolding of God’s offering, again, this Holy Week 2022, entering into the flow of the river of life once again.
