New Beginnings

As we approach Easter, new life and new beginnings live strongly in my awareness. I wonder what new beginning is quietly forming within you, waiting for you to be ready for it to emerge?

May you find yourself able to hold space for it to emerge into fullness. And may you recognize how Spirit meets you there.

May the blessing below strengthen you on your journey.

Blessing for a New Beginning, by John O'Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,

Where your thoughts never think to wander,

This beginning has been quietly forming,

Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

 

For a long time it has watched your desire,

Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,

Noticing how you willed yourself on,

Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

 

It watched you play with the seduction of safety

And the gray promises that sameness whispered,

Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,

Wondered would you always live like this.

 

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,

And out you stepped onto new ground,

Your eyes young again with energy and dream,

A path of plenitude opening before you.

 

Though your destination is not yet clear

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is at one with your life’s desire.

 

Awaken your spirit to adventure;

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

* cross posted at fccdm.org

Looking for Life

I’ve been reflecting the past few days on the reality that we find what we look for in life.

If we look for the problems, then life becomes about weakness and gaps and difficulties. We find ourselves living through days that become about issues and troubles. We seek after solutions and fixes for all that is wrong.

And when we journey with this mindset, then what we most often notice is what is missing. We see the lack, the deficit, in each circumstance. And slowly, ever so slowly, we begin to live from a place of scarcity, without ever realizing it – there’s not enough, there’s never enough for whatever we need, whether it’s for ourselves or for our community or world.

We have a choice, instead, to journey through our days seeking to be attentive to the strengths that exist, in ourselves and in others, seeking to be attentive to all that empowers us to be who we truly are. And this journey, we find, leads us to see the good in ourselves and in others. It leads us to trust that good intentions lie behind hurtful words or harmful actions. We find, growing stronger within us, gratitude for what we have rather than worry or dissatisfaction over what we apparently lack.

When we look for life among our connectedness and worth, we don’t miss the issues and problems that abound in our communities and our relationships. The reality that they exist cannot be ignored. The hurt, the pain, the systemic injustice cannot be denied. Yet paying attention to the Divine that flows through all of life empowers us, emboldens us to seek a different response to the ills that surround us. Paying attention to each one’s connectedness, each one’s worth shows us the issues we deal with go beyond right/wrong, good/bad, win/lose – and we come to recognize other alternatives living in God’s abundance.

Where do you look for life this day?

*cross posted: fccdm.org