• The Push of Forgiveness

You do not have to be good before God will love you; you do not have to repent before you will be absolved by God. It is all the other way around. If you are good, it is because God’s love has already made you so; if you want to be forgiven, that is because God is forgiving you.’

(Extract from: http://novenas.sacredspace.ie/shnovena5)

As I prayed, I realised that the loving forgiveness of God is always streaming towards me and you, and all of humanity. This being so, as I open my heart to receive this forgiveness, this gift enters and wants to push out the unforgiveness, non-forgiveness, hurt and resentment I am holding onto, sometimes unknowingly, in recesses of my being. This may be why we cannot experience being forgiven whilst we withhold forgiveness from those who have wronged us. The nature of love is to heal as it finds hurt in us. Love gently says, 'Let go. Trust Me with the offending party.' Better to be filled with love and forgiveness than the putrid ferment of bitterness and hate or resentment which corrodes the soul, and our relationships, very life and affects our physical health too.

To make room in ourselves for joy and love, we need to pull up the plug that keeps the rot in us. Love flows in and through us. The other stagnates and putrefies. Ugh!

In my imagination I am a child looking up at the refreshing shower falling on me and laughing and splashing with joy as the water gurgles around me. No longer obsessed with keeping the plug in and wallowing in the fetid water that should be washed away.

Which is it to be for you?

You are beautiful. Let the waters of forgiveness have their way.

Amazing Grace

How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost but now am found

And He will never let me go

Wounds are good enough for heaven

Good enough for the body of the Son of God

I bear mine in faith, in hope

Redemption is a real bodily affair

On earth as it will be in heaven.

I believe in the resurrection of the body

All my wounds cry, Alleluia!

All my bruises honour you...

The scars are just the trophies of the grace that saw me through...

Words from song by Clay MacLean 

A poem by Amy Carmichael who was a Christian missionary in China, and spent 20 years or so from her sickbed, writing, organising and being a spiritual tour de force.

Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on for it side or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land.
Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers.
Spent. Leaned me against a tree to die.
And rent by ravening wolves that compassed me.

I swooned.
Hast thou no wound?
No wound, no scar?
Yet as the master must the servant be.
And pierced are the feet that follow me.
But thine are whole.
Can he have followed far
That hast no wound or scar?

Water water water and water
Give me water in this hot summer.
And water has atom, water has favor,
And water water water and water
Water as cloud, and water drops
In action, in creation and
Water is the symbol of supreme devotion.
Water, water. water and water
And in water there is true love
That is flowing within and outside. 

gajanan mishra

QADOSH QADOSH QADOSH*

 

(Take off your sandals for the place where  you

 are standing is holy ground, said God to Moses.

 Exodus 3:5)

 

Empty of love

 

Hungry for love

 

I ache for God

 

Deep within

The shutters closed

On a lonely universe,

 

The inner recess

Flings them wide:

Here I am

 

They who dare win?

They who dare

Do or die

 

Let me see. Come

Let my famished eyes

Feast on your beauty.

 

My quivering self

Is stilled by awe.

The silence is heavy,

 

Alive, bursting

Into the vacuum,

Ecstatic shout explodes

 

I surrender

In a million

Tiny fragments

 

Holy Holy Holy

 

 

By Angela M Scott

June 1998

 

*NOTE: Qadosh is the Hebrew word meaning Holy

Come let us adore Christ our Lord, who promised to send us the gift of his Holy Spirit.

Alleluia!

Anna Kamienska (1920–1986)

Those Who Carry

Those who carry pianos
to the tenth floor wardrobes and coffins
an old man with a bundle of wood limps beyond the horizon
a woman with a hump of nettles
a madwoman pushing a pram
full of vodka bottles
they will all be lifted
like a gull's feather like a dry leaf
like an eggshell a scrap of newspaper

Blessed are those who carry
for they shall be lifted.

Translated from the Polish by David Curzon, in David Curzon (ed.), The Gospels in Our Image; An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry Based on Biblical Texts (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company), p. 80

The Dark Night ~ St John of the Cross

One dark night, fired with love's urgent longings - ah, the sheer grace! - I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled. In darkness, and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised, - ah, the sheer grace! - in darkness and concealment, my house being now all stilled. On that glad night in secret, for no one saw me, nor did I look at anything with no other light or guide than the One that burned in my heart. This guided me more surely than the light of noon to where he was awaiting me - him I knew so well - there in a place where no one appeared. O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn! O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the Beloved into his Lover. Upon my flowering breast, which I kept wholly for him alone, there he lay sleeping, and I caressing him there in a breeze from the swaying cedars.* When the breeze blew from the turret, as I parted his hair, it's gentle hand wounding my neck,* suspending all my senses. I abandoned and forgot myself, laying my face on my Beloved; all things ceased; I went out from myself, leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.

* my own translation

Fire of the Spirit

by Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)


Fire of the Spirit, life of the lives of creatures,
spiral of sanctity, bond of all natures,
glow of charity, lights of clarity,
taste of sweetness to sinners--
be with us and hear us.
Composer of all things,
light of all the risen,
key of salvation,
release from the dark prison,
hope of all unions, scope of chastities,
joy in the glory, strong honor--
be with us and hear us.

~Julian of Norwich~

I was filled full of everlasting assurance, powerfully secured without any pain or fear. This experience was so happy spiritually that I felt completely at peace and relaxed; there was nothing on earth that could have disturbed me. But this lasted only for a short time, and then I was changed and I began to act with a sense of loneliness and depression and the futility of life itself, so that I hardly had the patience to continue living. No comfort or relaxation now, just 'faith, hope and love', and truly I felt very little of this.

And yet soon after this our blessed Lord gave me once again that comfort, so pleasant and sure, so delightful and powerful, that there was no fear, no sorrow, no pain, physical and spiritual that could bother me. And then again I felt the pain; then the joy and pleasure; now the one and now the other, again and again, I suppose about 20 times. In the time of joy I could have said with S. Paul: Nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ; and in my pain I could have said with S. Peter: Save me Lord, I am perishing.

This vision was shown to teach me to understand that some souls profit by experiencing this, to be comforted at one time, and at another to be left to themselves.

God wishes us to know however that he keeps us safe at all times, in sorrow and in joy.

Denise Levertov (1923–1997)

The Avowal

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
free fall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace

Prayer fastens the soul to God, making it one with his will through the deep inward working of the Holy Spirit. So he says this, 'Pray inwardly, even though you feel no joy in it. For it does good, though you feel nothing, see nothing, yes, even though you think you cannot pray. For when you are dry and empty, sick and weak, your prayers please me, though there be little enough to please you. All believing prayer is precious in my sight.' God accepts the good-will and work of his servants, no matter how we feel.
~Julian of Norwich~

Upon further reflection:

In my mind I keep coming back to this picture. Reflecting on its meaning... I may be empty, not feeling have much to offer, tired, burnt out... Look up to God's divine fullness. That "wine in the sky" is a full cup...full to overflowing. Fits with Mother Julian's saying: God's goodness overflows endlessly. I also like that it is an invitation to sit down - to commune - with the Lord - with the double meaning of Holy Communion implied. All of life’s experiences baptised in the Holy Spirit of his Presence.

SWIMMING

Sometimes this happens:

Every happy memory,
A cascade of mystic encounters,
The body’s imprint of physical joy,
All eliding, weaving, coming together
In a kaleidoscopic ecstasy.

This moment’s joy,

Resonating with all those others,
Like a chorus of alleluias,
Drowning me in dripping scented oil,
As I drift, float, sink, and find
I’m swimming in a symphony.

 

By Angela Scott

August 2001

Once upon a time in a land far far away, Olivia came to suddenly, blinking in the glorious bright sunshine. The last thing she remembered was swirling mists and cold clammy fog. And sheer terror. The warmth was lovely. There was a calm feeling in this place and she allowed herself to luxuriate in this wonderful new experience. Gone was the sense of threat, of being ‘on guard!’ She gazed around. Fear had no place here. Somewhere inside her just knew it. She was safe now. How could the terror melt away like this? She didn’t care. That it had gone was all that mattered. But we humans are curious creatures and the urge to retrace the steps that had brought her here tugged at the edges of her mind. But not yet, the feeling was just so good.
Copyright by Angela Scott

He loves us and enjoys us, and so he wills that we love him and enjoy him, and firmly trust him; and all shall be well.

~Julian of Norwich~

Maya Angelou (b. 1928)

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

I rise today in the love of God

No matter...

"Truth sees God, and wisdom contemplates God, and of these two things comes a third, and that is a marvelous delight in God, which is love."
(14th Revelation, p. 256) Julian of Norwich

Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to Your holy will, which is Love and mercy itself.



POEM

 

The Beginning of Wisdom

 

You have brought me so far.

I know so much. Names, verbs, images. My mind
overflows, a drawer that can't close.

Unscathed among the tortured. Ignorant parchment
uninscribed, light strokes only, where a scribe
tried out a pen.

I am so small, a speck of dust
moving across the huge world. The world
a speck of dust in the universe.

Are you holding
the universe? You hold
onto my smallness. How do you grasp it,
how does it not
slip away?

I know so little.

You have brought me so far.

 

Denise Levertov (1923–1997)

 

You are enough for me

 

 

Our soul rests in God its true peace, our soul stands in God its true strength, and is deep-rooted in God for endless love

 

~Julian of Norwich~

 

Blessing for Ascension:
May almighty God bless you on this day when his only Son ascended into heaven to prepare a place for you.
After his resurrection, Christ was seen by His disciples. When He appears as judge may you be pleasing for ever in His sight.
...

You believe that Jesus has taken His seat in majesty at the right hand of the Father. May you have the joy of experiencing that He is also with you to the end of time, according to His promise.
Amen! Thank you Lord Jesus.

I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you into myself, that where I am there you may be also. Gospel of John

TOWARDS RESURRECTION

 

Poetry, visual art, reflections,

to help us get still,
and pray.

 

It's about

 

ENCOUNTER

 

with the Living God

 

who LOVES us