Me

I wouldn't normally entitle a post, Me, but part of spiritual formation is accepting who we are, both the bad and good, and discovering the hidden parts of our personality, the shadow and the golden shadow,   As I've grown with God over the years, I've come to know myself better, accept myself more and to integrate the shadow side, though I've still a ways to go.  Here's some of the generally good I know about myself.  (I say generally, because a good trait taken to an extreme, can be a weakness--my husband would say that about my curiosity!  Maybe I need to write a companion piece that contains some of the negative.)

Me

Eclectic

Animal lover

Nancy Drew & Sherlock Holmes—Books!

Curious

Creative

New experiences, travel

Learning, thinking, growing

Exploring the world outside & in

By foot, by plane, by words printed & digital,
in silent gazing, listening & musing

Contemplation

Sharing what I’ve learned

Encouraging others to grow

Senses in Photos

In preparation for a retreat I am co-leading this April, I am finally diving into the many art prayer and therapy type books I have.  One had an exercise in which you take photos representing the senses, so I did that from my window seat yesterday in the afternoon sunlight.  I find photography can help me to be in the moment, see something familiar in a new way and appreciate the beauty around me.

Touch - I can imagine touching those prickly pinecones that seem to touch the sky

Hearing - the wind in the trees, the trees growing

Sight - my eyes and the camera catch the blur of motion and color of Catnip's tail

Smell - the warm woolly smell of the lamb

Taste - I remember Catnip licking my chin last night with her scratchy tongue

Knowing - the book adds a sixth sense of knowing;
I know beyond there is more than just what I see with my eyes.
This is one I feel I could ponder a while...

 I'm adding this because I like it.  I never saw this spot as an altar before, though it is often where I pray,
but seeing it in a photo makes me realize that it is a home altar.
I am even in the picture!

Seeing

O, to see Your glory in the windward dance of trees.

O, to see Your glory in the ragged scudding clouds.

O, to see Your glory in bird prints etched on snow.

O, to see Your glory in star-spattered midnight blue sky

and frosty topped waves assailing glinty shore.

O, to hear Your glory in a child's desperate wail and a teenager's shy giggle.

In every taste--chocolate & coffee, sweat and wine.

In every smell--hyacinth & sulfur, manure and soap.

To feel You in every touch -- caress of wind, pain of burn, child's handclasp, friend's hug.

O, to see You peeking at me from every nook and cranny and blade and hair of creation!

To hear You whisper in every moan and whistle and bleat and wuther of live, living Life!

Open my eyes to see, Lord, for where I look, You are.

I wrote this several years ago when I was first learning to really see, really learning to live in the present moment and be in the present moment. Yet, looking back over my life, especially thinking of my childhood and youth, days spent wandering my family's 50 acres of woods and overgrown fields, noticing wild flowers and leaves, laying in a pastures gazing at clouds, marveling at the mass of purple violets filling the stream hollow, I realize I was seeing then, and though I didn't know it, God was at my side.

I've been reading a book about seeing in which the author says, "We cannot attain the presence of God because we're already totally in the presence of God. What's absent is awareness. Little do we realize that God is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take." (Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs, p. 29) This echoes Acts 17:24-28, "The God who made the world and everything in it ... gives to all men life and breath and everything. ... he is not far from each one of us,
for `In him we live and move and have our being.' as well as Colossians 1:17 "in him all things hold together."

What we need, the author contends (and Jesus, as well as Buddha and many religious leaders and mystics) is to see, to become aware. God is already present in our lives. We don't need to look in the past, the future, the next state, the next church, the next relationship, the next book, the next retreat center. When we look at what is before us with openness and humility and faith, we will truly see. What is, is our teacher that will open our hearts to God's presence. Like a cup, we can be open and still, waiting to receive the gift of awareness of Presence.