whole: day 12

It is the whole of nature, extending from the beginning to the end that constitutes the one image of God Who Is. St Gregory of Nyssa, On the creation of Man The language of God is life itself, and I live with the unquenchable need to take my life in my hands and try toContinue reading “whole: day 12”

whole: day 11

The truth of what we call our knowing is both light and dark.  Men are always dying and waking.  The rhythm between we call life … I walk in the dark feeling darkness on my skin.  Dawn always begins in the bones. ‘Hymn to Ra’, The Egyptian Book of the Dead As I am beginningContinue reading “whole: day 11”

whole: day 10

Something has reached out and taken in the beams of my eyes. There is a longing, it is for his body, for every hair of that dark body. All I was doing was being, and the Dancing Energy came by my house. His face looks curiously like the moon, I saw it from the side,Continue reading “whole: day 10”

whole: day 9

IT IS ONLY BY PUTTING IT INTO WORDS THAT I MAKE IT WHOLE. Virginia Woolf If seeingdarkly is my shorthand for ‘for now we shall see through a glass, darkly’, then my shorthand for ‘now I know in part’ (I Corinthians 13.12 KJV) is knowingdarkly. There are so many days when I do not knowContinue reading “whole: day 9”

whole: Sunday 2

But for God to reach us, we have to allow suffering to wound us. Now is no time for an academic solidarity with the world. Real solidarity needs to be felt and suffered. That’s the real meaning of the word “suffer” – to allow someone else’s pain to influence us in a real way. WeContinue reading “whole: Sunday 2”

whole: day 7

There is a crack in everything God has made. Ralph Waldo Emerson  I am moved by the Japanese art of Kintsugi, both for its own sake, and as a profound spiritual metaphor.  Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken teaware, by reassembling the ceramic pieces in such a way that the broken/repaired/remade piece is perceivedContinue reading “whole: day 7”

whole: day 6

‘the only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision’.  Helen Keller If I’m not careful, what I see with my eyes, and how I see it with my mind, often lead me into either/or binary: I like this/don’t like that; that’s alive/that’s dead; that’s beautiful/that’s ugly; that’s God/that’s not God. YetContinue reading “whole: day 6”

whole: day 5

Little Kay was quite blue with cold – nearly black, in fact – but he did not notice it, for she [the Snow Queen] had kissed his shivering away, and his heart was nothing but a lump of ice.  He spent his time dragging sharp, flat pieces of ice about, arranging them in all sortsContinue reading “whole: day 5”

whole: day 4

We are afraid of emptiness.  Spinoza speaks about our “horror vacui”, our horrendous fear of vacancy … It is very hard to allow emptiness to exist in our lives.  Emptiness requires a willingness not to be in control, a willingness to let something new and unexpected happen.  It requires trust, surrender, and openness to guidance. Continue reading “whole: day 4”

whole: day 3

Genuine wholeness in the spiritual life … requires unflinchingly facing one’s hollowness.  The harshness of the desert exacts a stripping away of every chimera and self-delusion for the sake of what is real.  “Delight in the truth,” exhorts Donald Nicholl. “Truth tastes better with each illusion that evaporates.” The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, Belden C.Continue reading “whole: day 3”