
It is the third week of advent, this precious season of waiting, hoping, expecting renewal, preparing, watching, waking up, pondering, unfolding, consenting, readying, bearing Christ within. It is a time of stillness, faith, adoration, heightened receptivity, trust, vigilance, peace, joy, love. Stillness is what has been calling me this season. The stillness calling me is deep deep within me, the place that is quiet no matter what is going on around me in the circumstances of my life. There may be movement and noise as well but somehow the quiet stillness can become louder than the rest as I carry on with my life. It is also a call to head an outer stillness, to take more time and space to tend to my Being after such an incredulous year. T. S. Eliot says, "We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the dark cold and empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning." We all need to meet ourselves as we are, to listen to the words calling us in this season and to allow them to draw us deeper into them. To trust that as we tend to what is calling us we tend to the Whole. We know all to well by now that we are not separate. What I do for 'me' especially if done consciously can only be about 'we.' What is calling you in this season and are you listening? 'We' need you to listen. May your mind be open.
May your heart be wide.
May your body be at ease.
May you re-member yourself.
With love,
Heather
Here are a few of the readings from this week's pauses:
'Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower' by Rainer Maria Rilke
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
Christ is coming
closer to the surface of our being
stay soft,
let Him rise
again and again
through the Sacred Chalice
of your Heart
— Cristina Pepem
"We can read the history of our 13.7-billion-year-old universe as the rising up of Divine Love incarnate, which bursts forth in the person of Jesus, who reveals love’s urge toward wholeness through reconciliation, mercy, peace, and forgiveness. Jesus is the love of God incarnate, the wholemaker who shows the way of evolution toward unity in love. In Jesus, God breaks through and points us in a new direction; not one of chance or blindness but one of ever-deepening wholeness in love. In Jesus, God comes to us from the future to be our future. Those who follow Jesus are to become wholemakers, uniting what is scattered, creating a deeper unity in love. Christian life is a commitment to love, to give birth to God in one’s own life and to become midwives of divinity in this evolving cosmos. We are to be wholemakers of love in a world of change."
— Ilia Delio
"'Let there be light,' is the transcendent creative light
that is present as the basic energy of everything that exists.
... It is that light that is the source of the spiritual nature
of our being.
It is that light that dwells in us
as our inmost spiritual nature and
... shows us exactly who we are and the true state
of our relationship with God.
... The journey into the light,
which is synonymous with the true self
... is to make ourselves aware of the height,
length, breadth, and depth of the love of Christ
in taking on our human nature."
— Thomas Keating
Yeshua says...
Suppose you are asked,
"Where have you come from?"
say, "We have come from the Light at its source,
from the place where it came forth
and was manifest as Image and Icon.
If you are asked, "Are you that Light?"
say, "We are its children,
and chosen by the Source, the Living Father."
If you are questioned,
"But what is the sign of the Source within you?"
say, "It is movement and it is rest."
— Logion 51, The Gospel of Thomas
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