Monday, April 5, 2010

"Ordinary" Grace - 1

This looks to be a post-Lent Lent, in the sense that I'm going to try as an intentional spiritual practice to be more attentive to and grateful for all that I take for granted, most of which I view out of a lens warped by loss. (And warped by other frustrations as well; for example, the fact that I am still way too tired to get much outside enjoyment out of yet another incredibly beautiful day. At least I can see all of the green exploding into life all around me, and I'll be able to feel the warmth of the sunshine when I go out in a bit.)

So:

Where I am going in an hour or so is to meet with someone whom I've recently begun to accompany through the Ignatian Exercises. I can hardly believe that the fact that I'm writing it down here means that I have begun to take even that for granted. In my own life, there are two huge before-and-afters: Josh's death, and making the Exercises. I don't see how I would be surviving the former in the way that I am without the latter. What an enormous grace and privilege this is for me: to share in someone's unfolding encounter with God, to offer the gift of a tradition of 450 years and to receive in return the confidence and trust that enables a person to explore the ways in which it calls out of the present, and to share in a partnership in which God is so clearly at work.

Maybe not so entirely ordinary, huh?


6 comments:

  1. Nothing in the least bit ordinary about you or this upcoming experience, Robin.

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  2. Maybe it's the new ordinary.

    Where we come to life in a totally different way ... and feel as if we are there for the first time.

    There is a poem, somewhere deep in my mind, when I find it, I'll post it. About touching on new land.

    What an honor, to be a companion on the way. I find that a humbling, awe-filled spot.

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  3. Robin -

    These are parts of two poems that I have found particularly apt. When coming to the new life, the one after.

    “I have a feeling that my boat has struck, down there in the depths, against a great thing. And nothing happens!

    Nothing ... Silence ... Waves.

    Nothing happens?

    Or Has everything Happened and we are standing now, quietly, in the new life?”

    - Juan Ramon Jimenez


    "One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time"

    - Andre Gide

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  4. I'm hoping to do the Ignation Exercises next year. It's a nine-month program we have in my area called "Heartpaths." Looking forward to it, for a lot of reasons.

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