Connected with Cohasset

Reflect on who/how has come and gone throughout my life and has blessed me.  (And I am content with the passing of the connection — and can see that the blessing remains.) [Assignment from my spiritual director.]

Oh what a glorious day!  Sunshine, blue sky, wind, choppy waves, lots of sea-sounds splashing, crashing waves on rocks, open sea, LARGE WATER!, multi-colored boulders.

Celebrate that God has given me wisdom and courage to act in integrity. [More assignment from director.]  Praise be Jesus!

Colors of the ocean this morning:

1. navy blue
2. stormy sea blue
3. blue-green
4. teal
5. green-blue
6. olive-green
7. green-brown
8. murky red-brown
9. frothy-white crested-brown and green
10. glassy silver
11. white

I am experiencing a bubbling Joy I haven’t felt in a very long time!  Thank You, Lord.

Today I camped a small while in a niche of rock perfectly sized as a chair for me, looking out onto the boulders facing the Atlantic just east of Euphrasia Hall, after my meeting with my spiritual director.  It felt good to be nestled in with the rock and to enjoy the waves crashing and splashing against the boulders just below.

After lunch, I napped almost two hours.  Then I spent an hour on the porch, head into the wind, watching the storm (Hermione) come.  Forecast says winds will peak at 25 mph around 9 p.m.  Rain was expected at 4:15 but hasn’t come yet (4:51).  Liturgy is at 5:00.  I found six books I will take with me from the library.  Joan said we could take any book we like.  I found four on mysticism, one “cube book” full of amazing photos of the earth, and one on sacred dreaming.

Tomorrow is Tuesday already!  Our middle day!  It seems to come too soon!  I will have three full days and then one closing day plus travel.  Time for liturgy…

Tonight it is raining.  The sky is a foggy gray, the sea is green and very choppy, the wind is strong and raucous, the trees are waving wildly.  I feel like it’s a party!

Today I am grateful to God, grateful for Everything!

Amazing!

The above were notes written throughout a day on retreat at St. Joe’s in Cohasset, September 2016.   Today (April 2017) I am grateful for how vividly I remember Being there.  It is as if I hold that place as an intimate space within me; it is now a part of me.  I see the view; I hear the waves; I smell the salt air; I breathe the Peace.  What a marvel.  Thank You, Lord.

Imminent Storm?

Is the storm coming or not?  According to the radar it’s storming all around me and yet the only sign of disturbance is this uneasy, heavy-gray, somehow oppressive quiet.  My body shows signs of dis-ease: sinus headache, a feeling of anxiety in my bowels and achy-ness in my bones.  How much of this is due to the local climate and how much is an expression of my fretting over things to come?

When I return home there will be some important decisions to make.  The wearisome worry right now is in not knowing the details to be decided, the choices available.  From past experience I know it could well turn out that the details will be clear, the choices will be good, and the decision will be easy — primarily because it will follow a fairly consistent path of decisions I’ve previously made.  But there have also been times when deciding is excruciatingly painful because none of the options seem well-designed for me and my needs, and/or the time I have to make the decision is too short and I don’t feel confident that I have enough data to make a wise choice.

Even though I have researched the area of my concern as well as I can, I still don’t know what my specific choices will be.  All I can really do is trust.  Trust the other parties integrity, trust my own knowledge of what’s right for my life, and most of all trust God to provide a way that is truly according to His Will for me.  Actually, there is at least one other thing I can do: use the meantime to foster peace within.  I can pray.  I can sit with Jesus and enjoy His company while we wait.  I can let the Holy Spirit abide in my heart, my soul, my mind, my psyche, my head, my bones, my bowels!

I think of my father’s favorite verse:  “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.” ~ Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)

I think also of that great old hymn, “Be Still My Soul”; here’s the first stanza:

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

And while here at the sea, I think of Jesus in the boat with His fretting friends, commanding the rocking waves “be still.”  And all became calm — even the people!

 

Bowlines and Brave Cast-offs

Throw off the Bowlines. Sail Away From the Harbor. Catch the Trade Wind in Your Sails. Explore. Dream. Discover – Mark Twain

Posted by: Kaylaa T. Blackwell in All Seeds, Challenge, Dreams, Growth, Inspiration, Motivation May 30, 2016

Throwing off the “bowline.”  That’s what I’m doing when I go on retreat.  My bowlines tend to be my home-space, my daily and weekly routines, my church and studio work, and some intangibles that I’m constantly trying to “get a handle on”.  Those invisible lines tend to be something about relationships, somehow feeling I need to safeguard or supply something for someone else, when usually what I really need to is to do something deep within myself for myself.  And somehow, apparently there are some things I can do for myself only when I am alone, apart, away from my daily world.

I sometimes wonder if this need to be apart means I don’t really like or embrace the choices I’ve made which have created “my daily world”, or if I’ve out-grown something in that world.  While that may or may not be true at times, I think I will always need time “apart.”  I think I am just someone who needs those kinds of dramatic time/space shifts in her external experience in order to process various (and usually deeper) aspects of her internal reality.

This particular time away I thought I would be processing some old wounds and my new perspectives on them and how I want to proceed within myself, especially how I might want to proceed in ways that are not necessary what others could expect of me or suggest for me.  However, the night before I was to leave on this trip, I received some “bad” news.  There might be some significant changes I will have to make in my work in order to comply with a new law recently enacted by the federal government.  Because the work I’m referring to involves an employer (and they have to comply in particular ways), my options are not entirely up to me.  I don’t even know yet what those options are, so I don’t know what range of real choice I will have in these matters.

This is the kind of waiting-to-find-out-something that can drive me to crippling anxiety.  It occurs to me that this can be the very substance most needed for the spiritual exercise I need to expand and deepen my faith.  I claim that the Lord is my everything, my all, and that in Christ I rest like a baby at her mother’s breast.  But when my circumstances are shaken and my body is tempted toward severe anxiety, do I find peace within?  Do I find peace in Christ?  The answer, most simply, is yes!  But it requires a choice on my part.  I find that I have to turn toward peace.  It is not imposed upon me!  I find that I can be drawn to that choice again and again depending on how big the fissure of possible change appears (Praise be Jesus!)  To use the metaphor of terrain, it is as if the unknown is a jagged canyon splitting my path, and as I walk, I am challenged to jump ever-increasing distances.

The fear that threatens my faith is wondering if I will fall through the cracks.  And my faith is not the assurance that I won’t, or that my road-as-I-know-it won’t include some dark and low passages, but that Christ will be with me every step and that there will be good purpose all along the way.  (Praise be Jesus!)  It’s knowing that Jesus-as-Sherpa is always more daring than I am inclined to be on my own that can be ever-stretching to my psyche and soul, ever-expanding my capacity for faith, peace, love, joy.  I truly don’t want to be abandoned to fossilization, so I follow in faith my beautiful and brave Jesus.

Hmm… I’m pretty sure I need to explore this thread further, but this is enough for now.

Deep stillness

The past two hours have been oh so lovely!  A deep quiet all around and inside of me.  I’ve been able to read and pray and write.  And gently in the background Yo-Yo Ma has kept me company with Bach’s Unaccompanied Suites for Cello, some of the very finest music in the whole wide world ever!  (In my humble opinion!)  I wonder how much of this peaceful stillness has been objective and how much is due to my perspective and attitude.  Either way, I am very grateful!  Abiding in quietude reminds me of that silky clean feeling just after a shower.  My mind feels so unencumbered, my heart feels free to breath, my body actually feels lighter, my spirit feels calm.  Thank You, Jesus!