Be silent.
Be still.
Alone.
Empty.
Before your God.
Say nothing.
Ask nothing.
Be silent.
Be still.
Let your God, look upon you
That is all.
God knows.
God understands.
God loves you.
With enormous love.
And only wants
To look upon you
With that love.
Quiet.
Still.
Be.
Let you God-love you.
Edwina Gately and Jane Hammond-Clarke.
Whispers: Conversations with Edwina Gateley
Source Books, 2000
During my reading for today I was exposed to theme of Heart-fire and I would like to use for my two prayer groups today. The season of Advent give us a precise opportunity to rekindle that fire in our life and in our planet.
Lyrics:
If you will, if you will,if you will,if you will. You can become all flame, you can become all flame, you can become all flame, you can become all flame. You can become all flame: Become all flame.
Become All Flame. Darlene Franz, voice and harmonium. wisdomchant.bandcamp.com
http://wisdomchant.bandcamp.com/track/become-all-flame
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Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can, I say my little office. I fast a little. I pray. I meditate. I live in peace and as far as I can. I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?”
Then the old man stood up, stretched his hands towards heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him,
“If you will, you can become all flame.”
–Sayings of the Desert Fathers (tr. Benedicta Ward)
Last week, I was exposed to a wonderful material that I would like to share with you. It is a poem by Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022). Here, he ties the meaning of the Body of Christ along the axis of awakening. He set us down firmly upon inner ground of transfiguration.
We awaken in Christ’s body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ. He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.
I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God’s indivisibly
whole, seamless in his Godhood).
I move my foot, and at once
he appears like a flash of lighting.
Do my words seem blasphemous?– Then
open your heart to Him.
and let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ’s body
where all our body, all over
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us utterly real,
and everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed
and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light.
We awaken as the Beloved
in every part of our body.
Symeon the New Theologian, “Awaken in Christ’s Body”, in The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, ed Stephen Mitchell (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p 38