Video: |
Meditation:“In prayer we journey forward to our origin. We close our eyes in prayer and open them in the pristine moment of creation. We open our eyes to find God, his hands still smeared with clay, hovering over us, breathing into us his own divine life, smiling to see in us a reflection of himself. We go to our place of prayer confident that in prayer we transcend both place and time." - James Finley, Merton's Palace of Nowhere |
Transcript:
So where is all this going? You may be saying, “I see how my image of God has changed as I’ve grown and matured in my faith. I see how God is working in my life right now. So.. awesome. I’ve arrived.” Well, not really. The reality is we never arrive. I’m not even sure that we ever leave. There’s nowhere to go. God is here and has been here all along. But the question is where is God sending you? What are the seeds that God has planted in your life that have borne fruit? What great Love is God calling you towards? Where is God asking you to go to stir up some discomfort within yourself? Who is God asking you to love? And out of that love - serve?
I love the term “calling.” As if God is just ahead of us beckoning us towards the great unknown where, no there’s not a shiny new car behind that curtain, but an opportunity to be a better you. Discover your True Self and in turn, discover God more intimately, more profoundly than you ever realized was possible. This is the good news of our stories. No matter who we are, no matter where we’ve been - we are all called to a better future that is not dependent on our circumstances but dependent on our willingness to answer the beckoning call of God saying, “over here - I’ve got something for you to do.”
We are called to be like Jesus. This is not posturing. This is actual blood and bones, embodied like Jesus. We are incarnational people. God in us. We are the hands and feet.
Maybe you’ve already discovered your calling. Awesome. Still not arrived. In the same way, our faith experiences several small conversions over the course of our lifetime, so too God continues to call us to greater and greater things. Now “greater” is maybe not the perfect adjective here. Greater might be on your hands and knees scrubbing the toilets at a homeless shelter that hasn’t been cleaned in 17 years. It may be writing a book. It may be going back to school to be a social worker. It may be rescuing stray animals. It may be being present to give witness to the pain of others. There is no one way of being called. We each have our own path. But each path does have something in common. It ASKS something of us. But as we look back on how God has shown up in our lives, carried us through, planted seeds, cultivated our being, our belonging.. We can trust that what we are called to is for our greater good.
In his book, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, James Finely writes this about Merton’s concept of prayer:
“In prayer we journey forward to our origin. We close our eyes in prayer and open them in the pristine moment of creation. We open our eyes to find God, his hands still smeared with clay, hovering over us, breathing into us his own divine life, smiling to see in us a reflection of himself. We go to our place of prayer confident that in prayer we transcend both place and time.
In prayer, distinctions like outside and inside, past and future, no longer apply. In prayer, we sit before the gates of Eden and the self the Father created us to appear, freed from layer upon layer of falsity and distortion in which we had become entangled and lost. In prayer, we experience this going back to our origins as a going into the center of our self, where God holds both our origin and our end in one eternal moment.”
Questions: As you look back at your life, where was God showing up?
What seeds was God planting in you?
And now, what is God calling you towards?
What gifts do you have that God is asking you to put to use?
If you’d like to go deeper into exploring your relationship with God, where God is calling you to. What God is teaching you. I encourage you to find a spiritual director. There’s a ton local and a ton you can find online. I can’t recommend the practice highly enough. It’s for all of us. Because we’re all called to be co-creators with Christ in His kingdom here on earth.
So where is all this going? You may be saying, “I see how my image of God has changed as I’ve grown and matured in my faith. I see how God is working in my life right now. So.. awesome. I’ve arrived.” Well, not really. The reality is we never arrive. I’m not even sure that we ever leave. There’s nowhere to go. God is here and has been here all along. But the question is where is God sending you? What are the seeds that God has planted in your life that have borne fruit? What great Love is God calling you towards? Where is God asking you to go to stir up some discomfort within yourself? Who is God asking you to love? And out of that love - serve?
I love the term “calling.” As if God is just ahead of us beckoning us towards the great unknown where, no there’s not a shiny new car behind that curtain, but an opportunity to be a better you. Discover your True Self and in turn, discover God more intimately, more profoundly than you ever realized was possible. This is the good news of our stories. No matter who we are, no matter where we’ve been - we are all called to a better future that is not dependent on our circumstances but dependent on our willingness to answer the beckoning call of God saying, “over here - I’ve got something for you to do.”
We are called to be like Jesus. This is not posturing. This is actual blood and bones, embodied like Jesus. We are incarnational people. God in us. We are the hands and feet.
Maybe you’ve already discovered your calling. Awesome. Still not arrived. In the same way, our faith experiences several small conversions over the course of our lifetime, so too God continues to call us to greater and greater things. Now “greater” is maybe not the perfect adjective here. Greater might be on your hands and knees scrubbing the toilets at a homeless shelter that hasn’t been cleaned in 17 years. It may be writing a book. It may be going back to school to be a social worker. It may be rescuing stray animals. It may be being present to give witness to the pain of others. There is no one way of being called. We each have our own path. But each path does have something in common. It ASKS something of us. But as we look back on how God has shown up in our lives, carried us through, planted seeds, cultivated our being, our belonging.. We can trust that what we are called to is for our greater good.
In his book, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, James Finely writes this about Merton’s concept of prayer:
“In prayer we journey forward to our origin. We close our eyes in prayer and open them in the pristine moment of creation. We open our eyes to find God, his hands still smeared with clay, hovering over us, breathing into us his own divine life, smiling to see in us a reflection of himself. We go to our place of prayer confident that in prayer we transcend both place and time.
In prayer, distinctions like outside and inside, past and future, no longer apply. In prayer, we sit before the gates of Eden and the self the Father created us to appear, freed from layer upon layer of falsity and distortion in which we had become entangled and lost. In prayer, we experience this going back to our origins as a going into the center of our self, where God holds both our origin and our end in one eternal moment.”
Questions: As you look back at your life, where was God showing up?
What seeds was God planting in you?
And now, what is God calling you towards?
What gifts do you have that God is asking you to put to use?
If you’d like to go deeper into exploring your relationship with God, where God is calling you to. What God is teaching you. I encourage you to find a spiritual director. There’s a ton local and a ton you can find online. I can’t recommend the practice highly enough. It’s for all of us. Because we’re all called to be co-creators with Christ in His kingdom here on earth.
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