Tag: Spirituality

A quiet day…taking time to rest ….

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In the traditional Christian understanding, this Saturday – between Good Friday and Easter –  is the day of growth and hope hidden deep in our existence, despite  all evidence to the contrary. It is a day for patience and quiet reflection. And indeed, despite all the work we do, and our best efforts, much of life remains unresolved, incomplete, frustrating and un-reconciled. We do not see all the answers or why some things are as they are. That is why days which encourage us to be silent and to wait – to get used to this in-between state –  are useful. They balance the desire of the mind to know everything and to be in control.

It’s important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative, and progressive, but these qualities don’t necessarily nurture soul. The soul has different concerns, of equal value: downtime for reflection, conversation, and reverie; beauty that is captivating and pleasuring; relatedness to the environs and to people; and any animal’s rhythm of rest and activity.

Thomas Moore

…..and feel trapped in our lives

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Treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. Rumi, The Guest House

Sometimes the things that are weighing us down in our lives can feel pretty big. We feel pinned down by them, constantly burdened. It could be confusion over  where our career is going; we could have financial worries; often it is family or relationship issues that cause restless nights; we can feel lonely and afraid. All that used to give us some joy has slipped away. At moments like these life seems to be sucked out of us, and we feel physically tired, unable to find real rest. We give up, not wanting to put ourselves in the position to be hurt again, or to grieve again, or   to be frustrated and angered, humiliated, disappointed. One image used in the Christian liturgy today – that of the boulder blocking the tomb – captures well this sense of  helplessness and despair.  Sometimes we can feel like we are being slowly buried alive, spent and weary,  trapped in our own “tombs” . We long for freedom, for a hint of new sense of life or hope  to come to us through the seeming loss and rubble of  our life. Sometimes we can find that when we make space and gain a new perspective outside the scene. At other times however, we need support – a word of encouragement, a friendly face, some “angel” to visit us, to reach down into our darkness and help us bear or overcome the load. We all have occasions to be that angel, in that we can all hold space for  another, kinder, reality for another person. We simply have to be willing to add our fresh shoulder to someone else’s bruised one,  and stand with them in their time of need.

Sometimes the boulder is rolled away, but I cannot move it when

I want to. An angel must. Shall

I ever see the angels face

or will there only be

that molten glow outlining every

separate hair and feather quill,

the sudden wind and odour, sunlight,

music, the pain of my bruised shoulders.

Ruth Fainlight, The Angel


Sunday Quote: Awareness

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In a crumb of bread the whole mystery is.

Paddy Kavanagh, Irish Poet, The Great Hunger

Blessings ……Beannachtai

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Following on the poem this morning, some thoughts on the blessings we have received and the place of  gratitude in our lives. It is interesting that in loving kindness meditation we always begin with blessings directed towards ourselves. So an ongoing good practice is to reflect on all who have touched us in our lives,  or just at the end of each day –  to see what blessings have come our way,  to take them in and be grateful for them. It seems to me that a lot of the time most of us feel as if we are looking for something, and we live our days or  weeks more or less happy or unhappy, but mostly not really paying attention to what is actually going on each day. Having space to notice and then be grateful for the small blessings of each day and the larger blessings of our life and history allows us to celebrate our life, come what may, moments of sadness and joy, being close or far away. 

Blessing is a very concrete reality. The word “blessing” is related in English to the word “blood.” Blessing is like the spiritual bloodstream that flows through the universe. When we bless something we are returning what we have received to its source. We know we receive life and breath from a source which is beyond us. We haven’t bought it or earned it. We are just put here and life comes to us from some mysterious source, and we can give it back. That is like the blood coming from the heart and going back to the heart. That blood keeps on flowing and if we tune in to the bloodstream of blessing the world comes alive. The same thing happens if we cut off the bloodstream or drain the sap from a tree; life withers. The gifts or blessings of life are always there but if we are not aware of them, they don’t do much for us. That is where gratefulness comes in. Gratefulness makes us aware of the gift and makes us happy. As long as we take things for granted they don’t make us happy. Gratefulness is the key to happiness.

David Steindl-Rast.

Beannachtai na Féile Padraig oraibh go léir! The blessings of  Saint Patrick’s Day to you all.

Sunday Quote: When we open our eyes

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It was early,which has always been my hour to begin looking at the world

Sometimes I need only to stand
wherever I am  to be blessed.

Mary Oliver, It was early.

Mont Blanc silhouette, early morning, Feb 2012

What holds us back

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Just as a snake sheds its skin, so we should shed our past, over and over again.  The Buddha

Today is Ash Wednesday, traditionally the start of Lent – the season of preparation for Easter  The word “Lent” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “lencten”,  referring to the lengthening of days in the Spring, thus placing the period in the context of growth and life. Lent became a time of reflection on freedom, seeing what the priorities in our life are and what needs to be let go of. As in other wisdom traditions,  it offers us a moment to enlarge our sense of things and go against the ways in which an unreflected life actually shrinks our heart. It reminds us to examine what is not essential, including the stories and habits which we have adopted over the years and which we come to see as fundamental to who we are.  It is an intensification of an insight that we see in our daily practice, namely,  that all things arise and pass away,  all things are impermanent.  So today, just as we begin to see Nature changing in the signs of Spring and new life, we try to internalize the understanding that we too are continually changing. This may mean that we need to let go of some elements of the past – which anyway is not happening any more except in the mind – in order for us to engage more fully with life in the present, in this moment.  It could be that we shed some aspects of what we hold as our solid self, and rather see  that we are more like a succession of selves.  Happiness in life comes not from holding onto the past but by living in the present with appreciation.

Detachment resembles the shedding of a number of coats of skin, until our senses are sharpened, or until “our inner vision becomes keen”. When we learn what to let go of, we also learn what is worth holding on to. Think of it in this way: it is simply not possible to share something precious or even to hold a lover’s hand, when we keep our fists clenched, holding tightly onto something. Detachment is not the inability to focus on things, material or other. It is the capacity to focus on all things, material and other, without attachment. It is primarily something spiritual; it is an attitude of life. And in this respect, detachment is ongoing, requiring continual refinement.

John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert