We all have so many different talents. I do not have an analytical mind and am hopeless at fixing things. But I was a good stenographer doing typing, taking shorthand and filing. I enjoyed working in what they called the steno pool with all the other girls. I did get promoted to be a receptionist that I enjoyed even more.
Our family has a gift for art, for painting and doing clay, for music and photographic art, for gardening and planing wonderful celebrations, and political insight, love of animals and nature, for swimming and counseling, good at writing and also sports but most important they are genuine and caring. They all get along well together.
I was reading about an artist who had begun being very scientifically accurate but over time he learned to see his art in a different way, as more spiritual. A monarch butterfly and a single begonia leaf float over a formless charcoal sky through which drifts a full moon. Thus the scientific vision emerges from the mystical one, with order and precision set against a background of chaos and mystery.
"`Mystical seeing discovers both presence and absence equally".
-- from Learning to Fall.
Jesus spoke about talents in Mathew 25. Not using our gifts of talent whether it is time or treasure can lead us into spiritual chaos. Superstition about a divinity who punishes fills me with fear not faith.
To be empowered spiritually is to take risks. There will always be within us the pull of earthly emotions and through prayer I am trying to find the strength to think and act positively. Faith is action. It takes a lot of practice to live with truth so that it becomes part of me and enables me to be more forgiving and compassionate.
"Mystical service means modeling calm in chaos, kindness amid anger, forgiveness at all times, personal integrity that offers us a chance to channel grace or withhold it."
---Entering the Castle by Carolyn Myss
The good news is that we have a life time to learn and to grow spiritually as well as physically.
The call on each of our lives is to be the peacemaker and the forgiver and the nurturer who does not judge. Each day can challenge us to live out these values.
To approach God is a paradox because we then realize how hard it is to find what we want to believe is real. The wonder is that we each have a human heart that has the power to know good and evil. To become more loving draws us closer to the wilderness of mystery that is a higher power.
I like to believe that Jesus would say "and all around my memories, you will dance"!
"Dance when you're broken open,
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off,
Dance in the middle of the fighting,
Dance when you're perfectly free."
---Rumi, a Sufi Master.
It is almost impossible to believe in the supernatural if your philosophy believes it is only illusions,
Yet there is within us all music that calls us to dance spontaneously. Dance by using the talents you have been given.
Friday was a rainy day.
Panteli enjoyed supper with us and is doing some last minute chores.
Saturday he is flying back to the Grand Caymans.
4 comments:
Oh, you should have mentioned it was a good bye super. Oh well. Sandra
Good for all of us that Dad convinced you not to be a nun!
Love,
Rick
Oh dear! Many of us think that reality can best be thought of as an illusion, let alone the supernatural! That is best thought of as an illusion within an illusion. You see, the real world of confusing illusion is full of unknows -- that is, are we atoms? are we electrons, are we screaming out into our own lonely planetary scrape-yard? -- is so much more interesting and, let's face it (to use a Dad saying), more scary than the silly supernatural.
Ghosts and goblins and witches and demons are really pretty tame stuff compared to all this kind of thing.
As I said before, religion and the supernatural is for those who can't handle God.
Love,
Rick
love the Rumi quote!
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