Advent is the season of the seed:
The seed, Christ said, is the word of god Sown
in the human heart.
The advent, the seed of the world's life, was hidden in Mary.
Like the wheat seed in the earth,
the seed of the Bread of Life was in her.
Like the golden harvest in the darkness of the earth,
the Glory of God was enshrined in her darkness.
Advent is the season of the secret,
the secret of the growth of Christ,
of Divine Love growing in silence.
It is the season of humility, silence and growth.
This time of advent is absolutely essential to our contemplation.
If we have truly given our humanity to be changed into Christ,
It is essential to us that we do not disturb this
time of growth.
It is a time of darkness, of faith.
We shall not see Christ's radiance in our lives yet;
It is still hidden in our darkness;
Nevertheless, we are to believe Christ is growing in our lives;
We are to believe it so firmly that we cannot help
relating everything, literally everything,
to this almost incredible reality.
I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song-- The song from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.
My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned all my limitations into beautiful privileges and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation.
Friends have been defined as people who know you at your worst and like you anyway, people in whose company you can be yourself. But perhaps more than anything else, friends are people who care about you for who you are, not what you can do for them. There is a kind of holiness in true friendship, because it makes sure that we are never alone when we desperately need to not be alone.
~ from LIVING A LIFE THAT MATTERS by Harold S. Kushner
"You don't need a big sister," Lulu said, "you need a friend. I'd much rather be that."
"Okay," Emily muttered shyly. "Only I don't know why. I'm just a kid."
"You know things most adults don't even think of. You care about the same things I do. That's a lot of what a friend really is. And you're strong. I've needed that. And you share your world, and you don't judge it. Those are very grown-up things; and Emily, I can't name one of my so-called friends who have them all."
If you maintain a feeling of compassion, loving kindness, then something automatically opens your inner door. Through that, you can communicate more easily with other people. And that feeling of warmth creates a kind of openness. You'll find that all human beings are just like you, so you'll be able to relate to them more easily. That gives you a spirit of friendship.
I asked the old couple what secrets they could tell me about living long and well. At first they looked at each other and laughed, then he declared,
"Things are as they are. I know my wife and she knows me. We don't hide from each other. We don't ask each other lots of questions, we aren't anxious, running around all the time. Everything is open between us. We say our prayers and do our work. Most of the day I am outside, and she is inside, and when we unite, we enjoy our company, thanks be to God."
"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"
Every blessing, dear friends, in this season of new growth.
To spend time in Nature's tapestry of Life is like opening an amazing gift: an instruction book of Love and Life given to us by the Creator, Source of All Being. Here we can see how we participate in the seasons of our lives, the interplay and interconnectedness of all things that sustain our lives, the beauty and wisdom of unity in diversity, and the intricate patterns of every variety of flora and fauna. Celebrating, honoring, and learning from this Divine Gift is in a very real sense to reverence our own lives and the life of the planet, which depend on Nature's abundant bounty. May we share and care for Nature's gifts with equity and gratitude. May we gift ourselves with times in the Silence while basking in some of Nature's sacred settings, even if it be in our own backyard. Here, peace, harmony, and renewal will be sure to nest in your heart.
The Mikmaq on the Atlantic coast have no sound for Nature. They have "space" or "place of creation" ... they have cultural literacy with the ecosystem ... every aspect of nature to Mikmaqs is Spirit. They live in harmony with this intelligible essence. The Mikmaq can perceive the web.
I bind unto myself today The virtues of the starlit heavens, The glorius sun's lifegiving ray, The whiteness of the moon at even, The flashing of the lightning free, The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks, The stable earth, the deep salt sea Around the old eternal rocks.
Arriving daffodils will make no sound, will blow no trumpets -- only the earthworm close to its root, burrowing underground, will hear the upsurge, feel the green stems yearn.
Beauty returns to Earth, devoid of noise, devoid of clamor. Now it lifts its head epitome of stillness and of poise and in unbroken silence all is said.
~ Fanny De Groot Hastings, thanks to Sally Hopkins
Robert could not find the answer; his mind was driving him in circles. There was only one way to make it stop. Robert walked across the fields at dusk into the Forest of Welferding. His better self always seemed to come out in nature, perhaps because he had come from and would eventually die and go into nature. He felt the cool moisture on his skin, smelled the musky moss tucked between the stones along the brook, walking until he almost forgot why he'd come. The sky was filled with stars with no air raid sirens, no distant roaring of planes. In the forest Robert had caught a glimpse of what the world could be like without war, and it was good.
When we enter the Stillness and listen, we feel the aliveness that is all around us. We give ourselves the opportunity to be a part of the vibrant, living, natural world. The Stillness brings a deep serenity into our hearts and a vital life force into our bodies. When we practice Entering the Silence in nature, there is no frantic separation between the creatures of the forest and the gentleness of our hearts.
Nothing has the potential to move us off dead center quite as powerfully as unexpected encounters in nature. From the meadows to the mountaintops, from the devoted pet to the flight of the bumblebee--the ways that nature nurtures us bring tears to our eyes and resolve to our hearts. And we are often brought into the place of allowing the spirit to finally get through to us. The possibilities are endless--the motion of the tides, the cleansing of a rainstorm, the dormancy of winter--all remind us that a force greater than ourselves turns the clock of this universe. Nature immerses us in that power.
~ from HOW CAN I LET GO IF I DON'T KNOW I'M HOLDING ON by Linda Douty
Nature is the great teacher, the book of life to be read and understood. That's why it is important not just to protect the natural world, but to guide it to the highest level of perfection. Our task as spiritual people is to foster an intimate bond between the world of nature--rivers, mountains, oceans, animals, forests--and our own felt nature. When one is thriving, the other will find needed support.
~ from THE LOST SUTRAS OF JESUS ed. by Riegert and Moore
If we will think of ourselves as coming out of the earth, rather than having been thrown in here from somewhere else, we see that we are the earth, we are the consciousness of the earth. These are the eyes of the earth. And this is the voice of the earth.
The earth is at the same time mother, she is mother of all that is natural, mother of all that is human. She is the mother of all, for contained in her are the seeds of all. The earth of humankind contains all moisture, all verdancy, all germinating power. It is in so many ways fruitful. All creation comes from it. Yet it forms not only the basic raw materials for humankind, but also the substance of Incarnation.
Made of the stuff of probability waves, starlight, planetary cycling, mighty mountains, continents, and oceans of our silver blue sphere, genetic journeys, language, learning, and loving, we each were birthed by this glorious universe that continues to show us its awesome majesty with each year cycling, each day dawning, each breath repeated, and each moment unfolding. We can only be joyous with the realization that so much of this awesome majesty is reflected in human consciousness. It is precisely this fact that enables us to call ourselves Sparks of God.
~ from "Meditations on Our Deep Roots" by Morty Breier in "Tikkun" Sept/Oct 1998
I was looking at the sky, just watching. I don't know how to say it, but I felt everything was perfect and connected--it's like there was no room even to think. It felt like my chest could explode and be the sun and the clouds.
