fall

Taking on the mystery is yielding to grace, letting go of all explanations, analyses, ideologies, self-images, images of God, agendas, expectations. Taking on the mystery is undergoing the finitude of years, hallowing diminishments, and living into the solitude of our own integrity. Taking on the mystery is undergoing the pain of learning that there are no empires favored by the Holy One: not the Roman, or the British, or the Soviet, or the American. Taking on the mystery is undergoing the grief of understanding that there are no theologies favored by the Holy One: not communism or capitalism, not Islam, Judaism, or Christianity. Taking on the mystery is acknowledging that we cannot name the mystery, though we try; we cannot claim the mystery, though we do. The mystery names and claim us, inviting us to take it upon ourselves as if we were God's spies.

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery.

The divine mystery is not a collection of problems. As the mystics keep chanting, it is a light so bright that it blinds us, that we are bound to experience it as darkness. To become intimate with it, we have to "unknow" worldly knowledge. We have to give up our tendency to assault it as we would a problem, learning to wait patiently for it to reveal itself as an intimate, at times even shy and vulnerable, lover. . . . The mystery never fails to nourish and heal me. I know that my spirit has been made to contemplate it, to love it as the central reality and treasure of my being. It is my lever for moving the world.

Much of life…is about awakening to the interior experience.In our day-to-day living, we come to see how all of our physical journeying is not simply a temporal exercise, a transitory, earthly trek, but increasingly points to a shared and liberating inner passage . . .As Christianity and all the great religious traditions of the world testify, our surface-level living is the symbolic acting out of a deep inward pilgrimage leading to -- and beyond -- the gates of the heart.
 

There comes a time in the spiritual journey when you start making choices from a very different place . . .And if a choice lines up so that it supports truth, health, happiness, wisdom, and love, it’s the right choice.
 

The real journey in life is interior.
It is a matter of growth, deepening,
and of an ever greater surrender to the
creative love and grace in our hearts.
 

Everything we need for growing into a full, rich relationship with God is already available in our lives.We need to pray, stay open, and not become discouraged.A spiritual journey is not a competitive event; we can all be on a spiritual quest.God comes to each of us in the native language of our soul.Gradually the language grows and expands, but no one grows in just the same way as someone else.We need to accept ourselves as we are and keep ourselves open to being changed and shaped by a life lived in growing intimacy with God.
 

The outer path we take is public knowledge, but the path with heart is an inner one. The two come together when who we are that is seen in the world coincides with who we deeply are. As we grow wiser, we become aware that the important forks in the road are usually not about choices that will show up on any public record; they are decisions and struggles to do with choosing love or fear; anger or forgiveness; pride or humility. They are soul-shaping choices.
 

With each discovery of truth about ourselves, we come to a crossroad on our journey toward God.One path leads to denial and despair . .. the other to holiness.
 

From the forest branches fading
    birdsong offered
Self-sacrifice to a huge silence.
Dark formlessness settled over all
    diversity
Of land and water.As shadows, as particles,
    my body
Fused with endless night.I came to rest
At the altar of the stars.Alone, amazed,
    I stared
Upwards with hands clasped and said,
    "Sun, you have removed
Your rays: show now your loveliest,
    kindlier form
That I may see the Person who dwells in
    me as in you."