As we stay committed to our practice of centering prayer and other types of silent meditation, we trust that we are coming to more fully rest and consent to the infinite Love and Mercy of God, to Divine Mystery. We trust that through our self-emptying and the deepening capacity to dis-identify with thoughts, emotions, and tensions in the body - this is not the same as bypassing - we return to spaciousness, wideness, and wholeness. We begin to see through this spaciousness, wideness, and wholeness and it changes how we see. The world, the universe, the cosmos is not seen as flat and linear but rather vivified and multidimensional. The mystics of all times have seen this way. It is a seeing that includes the reckoning with all the individual and collective pain and trauma that exists in our bones, that appreciates the wisdom of deep time knowing that each moment is part of a vibrant matrix connecting all other moments, that surrenders to the mercy knowing as Cynthia said in one of her wisdom schools, “The very place you are right now is one complete, full, integral, holy, unrepeatable moment of knowing and being known. Nothing has to be finished. It only has to be turned into.” This morning as Henry Schoenfield lead us through the Eucharistic celebration, he was speaking through this wholeness. He invited us by saying, “Dear friends, we now enter into this Eucharistic celebration. And as we enter into this celebration, we remember… we remember ourselves. We remember the light of Christ within, the light of Christ that is in all. We remember the seed of love that is in us and in all. We remember the I AM within that is held in the great I AM. It is in this remembrance that we find ourselves once more held in mercy, held in the everlasting exchange of love -- with God, with one another, and with all of creation.” This is but a taste of the fullness of love we experienced and I invite you to mark your calendars to join in future Eucharist celebrations on November 14th and December 19th. There are several opportunities to continue stabilizing and supporting this other way of seeing. Look below to find out more. With love, Heather
Here are most of the Readings from this week's pauses: And whom do I call my enemy? An enemy must be worthy of engagement. I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking. It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind. The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun. It sees and knows everything. It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing. The door to the mind should open only from the heart. An enemy who gets in risks the danger of becoming a friend. — Joy Harjo ‘Remember’ Remember the sky that you were born under, know each of the star's stories. Remember the moon, know who she is. Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to night. Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother's, and hers. Remember your father. He is your life, also. Remember the earth whose skin you are: red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth brown earth, we are earth. Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems. Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe. Remember you are all people and all people are you. Remember you are this universe and this universe is you. Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you. Remember language comes from this. Remember the dance language is, that life is. Remember. — Joy Harjo “Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there” — Meister Eckhart