Living Presence Transcript

that’s the matrix of transformation: meditation; sacred chanting; sacred movement; reading of sacred scripture

Cynthia Bourgeault Silence And The Word 21 & 22 November 1997
St. Philip Oak Bay

The word is living, as we take it in, more and more we live in it; life turns into wonder.

Wisdom is not knowing more and more things, but knowing with more of yourself.

The Psalms are important because they contain all the emotions known to humans. God intends us to face, embrace, and move beyond our shadow. The requirement is courage.

Our deep passions are held in the hand of God. There is nothing we cannot express. The Psalms say, whatever is part of ourselves can be worked through with God.

As you stand present, you will become more completely available to the workings of grace.

Show up for your life.

Our life becomes a lived poetry ie. beautiful.

Our core metaphor too often is that we are wounded and need to be healed, ie. get back to ground zero. But, in fact we are beautiful and the Christian way is to allow us to express that beauty that we are. The core of Christianity is beauty which creates energy.

We are working on the instrument on which the music of Christ is played.

Be gentle.

Work is an essential component of Benedictine spirituality, but not to get things done, rather to stay in the presence of God. “Nothing has to get done” – there is a climate of leisure, spaciousness – no drama. Let go of urgency and demand.

When things are not yielding, it’s because we have too much expectation. Let go of expectation.

Watch your emotions. Learn about how you are when you work.

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 from: The Wisdom Jesus

The practice of [lectio divina] is  based on the wager that scripture is a living word – not just history, not just facts and figures you can read in a book, but a source of ongoing personal guidance that can speak in your heart here and now, offering insight and uncannily timely assistance. I used the word “wager” deliberately, for as in all wisdom work, nothing is to be accepted on blind faith. But people who work with lectio divina on a regular basis report overwhelmingly that the wager holds true. If yoiu open yourself to this practice with any degree of inner receptivity, it is amazing how often you will be led to exactly what you need to hear at the moment or exactly the kick in the pants you need to get you moving. 150, 151

There is a marked difference between hearing… texts as articles of dogma and morality rammed down your throat and hearing them as windows into mystical truth. 157

What begins to emerge in a person from the slow, patient work in lectio divina is not only an intimate familiarity with scripture but also a distinctly poetic relationship with it – traditionally described as the awakening of the “anagogical” or unitive imagination… [in] mature lectio divina… the poetry of scripture and the poetry of one’s own life come together to form a single whole. 160