Recently, Sr. Francesca-Marie wrote that a foundation of their community seems to be in gestation for the United States. She and several others spent time this summer gathering information and meeting with friends in the states for prayer and discernment. She asks us to pray in the Silence that the Lord of the harvest will send forth enough living American stones to build a solid foundation.
"Water from the moon" -- a Javanese proverb for what one cannot have. Why are we so full of these strange movements for what is not here? Longings get touched, yet have no place to expand into fullness. And what is longing anyway? Water. From the moon. I am not at home -- never have been. Not that I don't know at some levels my way around. I do. But in the end, I am alone. Still waiting. Still riding the swing of my childhood years with my feet stretching up to the clouds ... The person of a thousand dreams rarely realizes one. And worse, never gets broken by one -- and humanized ... So, what claims me? Perhaps only that I set my face toward the stars -- less compellingly than I could hope ... and yet, more tenaciously that I would wish. I face. Perhaps that is enough.
In silence we discover ourselves, our actual presence to the life in us and around us. When we are present, deeply attentive, we cannot be busy controlling. Instead we become beholders -- giving ourselves up to the mystery of things. We become more willing to let things be. And, as a consequence we can also let ourselves be.
Through silence our days are illumined -- like rooms filled with light -- so we may inhabit our lives.
We each possess a deeper level of being ...
which loves paradox. It knows that summer is already
growing like a seed in the depth of winter. It know
that the moment we are born, we begin to die. It knows
that all of life shimmers, in shades of becoming
--that shadow and light are always together,
the visible mingled with the invisible.
When we sit in the stillness we are profoundly active.
Keeping silent, we can hear the roar of existence.
Through our willingness to be the one we are,
we become one with everything.
Dear Companion of my day, You are the Holy Mystery I surrender to when I close my eyes. I give You myself, my flaws, the mistakes, the petty self-congratulations. I give You my dear ones: my fondest hopes for them, my worries, and my dark thoughts regarding them. Take my well-constructed separation from me. Hold me in Your truth.
This day is already past. I surrender it. When I think about tomorrow, I surrender it too. Keep me this night. With You and in You I can trust not knowing anything. I can trust incompleteness as a way. Dark with the darkness, silent with the silence, help me dare to be that empty one -- futureless, desireless -- who breathes Your name even in sleep.
~ from Gunilla Norris in CHANGING LIGHT by J. Ruth Gendler thanks to Gay Grissom
Somehow, I must sit to listen.
Standing implies a readiness for action, for the executing of the will.
To hear You I must sit down and calm down.
The magpie mind chatters.
It doesn't know about stopping.
How helpless I feel in its automatic firing, its busy babbling.
It is impossible to hear You as long as I am full of sound.
I turn this helpless prayer toward You.
... slowly unknowing everything, becoming dark,
becoming yielding ... just sitting.
~ from BEING HOME by Gunilla Norris with thanks to Marjorie Michael
