Contemplative Fire :: September

September 2011 Reflection

Yesterday that age old expression took on a whole new meaning for me.

A forest isn't built in a day either. In July while with Contemplative Fire folk in the UK, we walked in the woods behind their home and four of us encircled an oak tree. It was so large that four adults with their arms outstretched could just cover it's circumference. Now that's a tree! Imagine what it has seen for it must be hundreds of years old. It didn't grow in a day either.

Why do I insist on thinking whatever I'm engaged in must be done immediately if not yesterday?

Literally yesterday, I turned the page in an art book I keep in the kitchen. 365 works of art, each with a thought/quote. That's when I found an etching by Piranesi of the Veduta of Rome paired with the quote. I delight in seeing how the Spirit can use anything to teach me for as soon as I saw the picture and read the wisdom I recognized an internal shift to slow me down. What am I rushing about? I want decisions. I want clarity. I want potentiality and possibilities to be realities. I want an acorn to be an oak tree and a piece of stone to be a city.

I still don't have a 'To Do' list, but I am feeling the force of activity in the world around me and my own vulnerability to it's press of speed, achievement, accomplishment. I remain committed to honoring 'being' above 'doing'. keeping my 'doing' submitted to Being, to Love, to God.

Contemplative Fire in Canada is going through a time of change and transition. I want it done now. I want the acorn to be an oak tree. The rest of my life is also experiencing change and possibilities. I want to see it now. I want the piece of stone to be a city.

I discover one more level of impatience in my false self, one more source of the strivings of the false self from which I seek freedom.

How about you? -- Any acorns you're pushing into oak trees? Any stones you're frustrated with because they're not yet a city? Or any acorns you're trying to make into maple trees or tulips?

Maybe it's time to reaffirm your intent to live resting in the LOVE of God, being held, sustained, floating in Presence right here, right now.

I'm always happy to hear from you.

with prayers as we continue this journey together

Anne

The Revd Anne Crosthwait

Community Leader (Canada)

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Rome Wasn't Built in a Day (John Heywood)



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