Today, know that Love is fierce. Love fiercely attends to your needs, defends you from that which causes you harm, wakes you, affirms you, gives you courage and clarity. Trust that fierce Love is also with those for whom you have fears or worries.
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David Whyte in his book on vocation Crossing the Unknown Sea writes:
"The severest test of work today is not of our strategies but of our imaginations and identities. For a human being, finding good work and doing good work is one of the ultimate ways of making a break for freedom. In order to find that freedom in the midst of the complex world of work, we need to cultivate simpler, more elemental identities truer to the template of our own natures. We must understand that we carry enough burdens in the outer world not to want to replicate that same sense of burden in our inner selves. We need spaciousness and freedom, but we can claim that freedom only by living out a radical, courageous simplicity - a simplicity based on the particular way we belong to the world we inhabit. If we ignore our simpler necessities, the attempt to create a complex professional identity most often buries us in layers of insulation through which it is impossible to touch our best gifts. Our lives take the form of absence. . . . we become exhausted from the effort needed to sustain our waking identities. The day may be full, we may be incredibly busy, but we have forgotten who is busy and why we are busy." When Moses was working as a shepherd in the desert, he saw a burning bush that was not consumed. A bush on fire that was not burnt. He knew, then, he was in the presence of Spirit.
Know, likewise, that as much as you seem to be experiencing fires of loss, your spiritual substance and home cannot be lost. Metaphorical fires may be burning in your work or families or communities or bodies, but Spirit holds intact your purpose and identity. (Partially inspired by the article What Cannot Be Lost from the Christian Science Journal.) Today I share a link to an inspiring personal essay, riffing on "I'm too old for this."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/fashion/im-too-old-for-this.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&src=me&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Most%20Emailed&pgtype=article Speakers and writers such as Martin Luther King and Gandhi inspire us because their words ring with spiritual authority. Through them, Spirit promises freedom, freedom of oppression in all its blatant or subtle forms, from freedom from slavery and prejudice to freedom from thoughts that limit us and keep us trapped in fear.
Today, feel the force of freedom, backed by spiritual authority, moving through your life, loosening any habits and patterns of thoughts that limit you. Feel the power of freedom moving through cultures and countries, shaking loose whatever holds people from full expression of their being. The Psalms say, "Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee."
Today, Love causes you to hear all the lovingkindness being whispered into your body, mind, and spirit. Today, Love tells you which way to walk and gives you full ability to hear direction - and take action. Often in our efforts to take actions for positive change, we will be unclear as to next steps. Those of us who are perfectionists often freeze at this moment, believing we can't act until we know for sure the "right" thing to do. However, often we can only discern and learn in the midst of doing, and we have to be willing to be engaged in difficult, confusing, or imperfect conversations; submit to messy processes; and risk feeling foolish or wrong.
From Romans 26, Amplified version:
So too the [Holy] Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance. Today, even though we may feel lost and unskilled, uncertain how to pray for ourselves or others, how solve any problem, or loosen any stubborn habit, Spirit itself is praying on our behalf. Trust and rest in that. In Isaiah, it says of God, "His reward is with him and his work before him." Notice the order. God does not work for a reward. God already has the fullness of reward - and works from that place of abundance, fullness, completeness, generosity. Today, turn your concept of work upside down. Today, do not work in order to gain a reward (money, status, appreciation, order, a sense of purpose, worth, or control.) Today, you are full and complete and have all you need--and your work is a natural, generous overflow of your fullness.
My wise friend Liz Matchett advises that when planning your day, your week, your year, your life, remember to build in time for recovery, especially after time of stress, positive or negative.
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AuthorTarn Wilson is the author of the memoir The Slow Farm and numerous essays. You may read more of her work at tarnwilson.com. Archives
September 2020
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