The Middle Passage

Joyce Rupp's poem resonates with me -

the persistent voice of midlife wooed and wailed, wept and whined, nagged like an endless toothache, seduced like an insistent lover, promised a guide to protect me as I turned intently toward my soul.

as I stood at the door of "Go Deeper", I heard the ego's howl of resistance, felt the shivers of my false security but knew there could be no other way. inward I travelled, down, down, drawn further into the truth than I ever intended to go.

as I moved far and deep and long, eerie things long lain hidden jeered at me with shadowy voices, while love I'd never envisioned wrapped compassionate ribbons 'round my fearful, anxious heart.

further in I sank, to the depths, past all my arrogance and confusion, through all my questions and doubts, beyond all I held to be fact.

finally I stood before a new door: the Hall of Oneness and Freedom. uncertain and wary, I slowly opened, discovering a space of welcoming light.

I entered the sacred inner room, where everything sings of Mystery. no longer could I deny or resist the decay of clenching control and the silent gasps of surrender.

there in the sacred place of my Self, Love of a lasting kind came forth, embracing me like a long beloved one, come home for the first time.

much that I thought to be "me" crept to the corners and died. in its place a Being named Peace slipped beside and softly spoke my name: "Welcome home, True Self, I've been waiting for you."

Rembrandt's Prodigal Son

I am reading Henri Nouwen's "The Return of the Prodigal Son" based on one of Rembrandt's last paintings at the Hermitage museum.

Rembrandt did not follow the literal text of the parable. What he portrayed is a half-blind old man (he painted the blind as real see-ers), dressed in a gold embroidered garment and deep red cloak, laying his large, stiffened hands on the shoulders of his returning son, in a torn undertunic covering his emaciated body and torn sandals. It's a picture of infinite compassion, unconditional love and everlasting forgiveness. Looking on is the critical older son who stands stiffly erect with both hands clasped together close to his chest.
Henri Nouwen reflects on himself as the wayward younger son, the older resentful son and finally the welcoming father. It's wonderful exposition of homecoming and reconciliation.

Retreat of Silence

Last weekend, I took part in my first silent retreat and discovered the wonderful world of contemplation and meditation.
I quote from Sue Monk Kidd's book "When the Heart Waits" - "When you are waiting, you're not doing nothing. You are doing the most important something there is. You're allowing your soul to grow up. If you can't be still and wait, you can't become what God created you to be."
"Contemplative waiting is consenting to be where we really are. People recoil from it because they don't want to be present in themselves. Such waiting causes a deep existential loneliness to surface, a feeling of being disconnected from oneself and God. At the depths, there is fear, fear of the dark chaos within ourselves."
Such a waiting can be likened to entering into a cocoon; into a process of separation, transformation and emergence [picture taken from www.naute.com].