seeking peace

Enter the garden

Where walls melt and trees blossom

Vibrant quietude

                           Mirabai Starr

 

The more you intentionally turn inward, the more available the sacred becomes.  When you sit in silence and turn your gaze toward the Holy Mystery… the Mystery follows you back into the world.

                           Mirabai Starr

 

The presence of God is infinite, everywhere, always, and forever. You cannot not be in the presence of God. There’s no other place to be. The only change is always on our side—God is present, but we’re not present to Presence.

                           Richard Rohr

_____________________________________

 

quietude can be dangerous

 

sitting in the dark, waiting for the light

can be a time of peace, but it can also,

for some of us,

be a time when a flood of thoughts, memories, and emotions arise

 

this morning, as the darkness lingered

a question arose in my brain

 

have I ever really been at peace?

have I ever really been content, or happy?

 

certainly there have been moments when I have been surprised by joy

at the birth of my children

as I have stood in the middle of nowhere and watched the sky blaze

with the grandeur of Sacred Love

 

but my life has also been a matter of striving

searching

longing

seeking

 

something more

 

I have worked hard,

striven for knowledge

fought for respect

searched for love,

 

and from a worldly perspective I have done well

I have had important jobs,

obtained degrees

accomplished much

 

but always, always

I mutter under my breath

to convince myself (ala Stuart Smalley)

 

I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!

 

except all too often I don’t believe it

 

and now, in my 70^th year, what I have come to understand

is that everything I need

everything I have sought for

everything I have longed for

 

is right here inside me

in that deep place where the Sacred dwells

in the Presence

 

in the Love that permeates me and will not let me go

 

and I have come to understand that the hard I work,

by “doing things”, and seeking to “be“ somebody,

the more I am just creating noise

the more distracted I am from what is

really important

 

from what I really need

 

what I need

is to fall in love with the Mystery

and to be healed and nurtured by all that the Holy Mystery offers

freely

 

it is when I have been touched by the Mystery (that some of us call God)

that I am filled, sated, made whole

and it is only when I am so transformed

 

that I can then go forth

into the world

and be a person who loves and is loved

and be a person

who finds joy

 

if I do not experience vibrant quietude first,

I go into my day, my life, needy

grasping

trying to “make it happen”

 

what I need is to go into my day, my life

thankful, grateful, filled with the Mystery

which never leaves

 

for it is only then that I am truly able to offer myself

in the service of love

 

joy is available

so is love

it is a near as my next breath