For me, as a physician, there is no surer evidence that something glorious and wonderful lies beyond our mortal existence. Death is not an end. It is a new beginning. It entails a magnificent reunion with God and all the wonderful souls that we've ever loved or will love. This is our destination when we pass over. Dying is not the end but rather a shift to a fresh form of life, a new and glorious manifestation of ourselves. In this regard, death would seem to be just another dramatic transition in a continuing cycle, similar tin quality to birth. We jettison our mortal shell as we pass from one life form and consciousness to another, more wondrous than the latter.
I wanted it. Desired it greatly. Yearned for its coming. But when it did come, I fought, resisted, ran, hid away. I said, "Go home!" I didn't know the fire of God could be more than a gentle glow or a cozy consolation. I didn't know it could come in as a blaze ... a wildfire uncontrolled, searing my soul, chasing my old ways, smoking them out. Only when I stopped running, gave up the chase, surrendered, did I know the fire's flaming as consolation and joy. Only then could I welcome the One whose fire I had long sought.
I have a feeling that my boat has struck, down there in the depths, against a great thing. And nothing happens! Nothing ...
Silence ... Waves ...
Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?
The Great Mystery will draw closer and begin to reveal some of her secrets in silence. We hope, in the emptying that silence is, to discover a way of being present to what happens and to what is. To be totally open to apprehend the full impact of each moment and each encounter, the heart must be set free from all prejudices, pre-conceptions and expectations. The silence at the center of our reflections here is for emptying and for letting go of the images and knowledge that obscure the vision of our hearts and our ability to truly hear.
Conversation is the ultimate experience of being in love. It involves self-surrender to the heart of mystery, to an uncomprehended "Who", given in a mystical way. The shift in our attention from all finite loves and hates, whether interpersonal, familial or philanthropic to concern for the Transcendent Other, available in the unmediated experience of love and awe, occurs first in that incarnate meaning that we are. We discover by God's gracious love, we are a meaningful word already spoken, a beloved whose very being is the expression of God's turning toward us. In essence, our conversion toward God is the created effect of divine love. We could not pray if God was not already invested in our hearts and mind.
~ from THE DESIRES OF THE HEART by Bernard Lonergan
\GREETINGS and BLESSINGS be with you, friends, in this season of seed-sowing! ... a reminder to ask ourselves how we are cultivating the inner soil of our hearts to prepare for renewal and new growth.
Learn how to wait, how to be silent, how to befriend the dark ... thus, do we prepare to be creative. There is a waiting, a silence and a darkness in all birthing. Heart's winter is already a filling womb... For the font of inspiration and newness to keep welling up within us, old wounds and our shadow side must be encountered and owned. So that creative love may flow in and out, each heart, one day, must be broken.
