The Daily Meditation by Richard Rohr (A Positive Vision, March 23, 2021) held within it a mash up of
Amos 5. Here’s a paraphrase:
Seek the Living Presence
and you’ll live…seek who made the Pleiades and Orion turning deep darkness into
morning and the day into night…hate the evil and love
the good and establish justice…
Now, I’m not one to normally quote scripture but on
this ordinary day the words Living Presence leapt off of the page. There was a seeming delicious quality to them imprinting a beautiful descriptive image of Life and Love. I imagined a Living Presence (organism) that is available to me, to us, and in which we live and move and have being. I allowed the jolt of these words to rest on
my heart and, eventually, my thoughts turned to my faith heritage and its focus on the doing. This sense of Living Presence felt like movement and growth and greatly contrasted to the heritage's reduced message of finding the Living Presence largely through
doing. In this moment I remembered the heritage's message as presented in multi-varied ways connected to patterns of belief and behavior. Now perhaps this is the way one must begin
the journey but certainly, intuitively, we grasp that growth entails a leaving behind of anything that is not
intended for the mature product. I am
reminded here of the grain of wheat that must fall and die.
So, on this ordinary day, where the essence of participating with a Living Presence was making such an impression, I also spoke with a dear friend recently diagnosed with cancer. This diagnosis presents her with a myriad of medical decisions and struggles and also the mental challenges associated with the possibility of mortality. During our conversation she said, “I want to live!” It was such an impassioned plea and bold statement, I was struck (again) by the scaredness of it and also impressed by the indomitability of the human spirit.
As the day progressed I realized that one thing I did not fully learn or grasp in my faith tradition, perhaps my own failing or perhaps not, perhaps a feature of growth or perhaps not, is that this Living Presence and this cry "to live" are linked. How could it be otherwise when, in essence, the Living Presence lives me? These ideas of living and Living remained with me throughout the day and with each activity of the day the question "is this living?" seemed to be inquiring into all aspects of my ordinary life. Like the accompanying photos of the aurora borealis (Yellowknife, Canada), undulating overhead in an everchanging dance of lights, this Living Presence permeated and danced me this day.
It turns out that this ordinary day, filled with mortality, food banks, car repairs, and groceries, was a day filled with awareness of the dance of life surrounding me. My mind knows that this dance is always present yet my heart is slowly learning how to participate. This ordinary day invited me into full participation with nothing more and nothing less than what was right in front of me. So simple yet often, at least in my case, easily missed. What a beautiful grace. I am now left with the wonder of how to better participate consistently with such a dance partner. I'm also struck that it has something to do with falling and dying but we will leave that for another time.
Do you have your own practices, noticings or stories related to this Living Presence? Perhaps you have another word for it? When are you most aware of Life's dance? As always, if you have thoughts, questions or comments about this subject please leave them here or contact me directly.
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