14/11/2016 · 9:48 am

Gate to the Path Ahead


Dear friends,
        For more than half of the voting public of these United States, it has been a rough week. My FB page is filled with disbelief, tears, rage, and horror expressed from across the nation— folks who are somewhere between uncomfortable or outright afraid. 
        I’ve read too much already.  Said too much already about this election.  I went from a sleepless Tuesday, to a tearful Wednesday, to an angry Thursday and a numb Friday.  By Saturday I felt like those drivers who slow down to see the crash…I just couldn’t stop watching, listening.  I woke up for the 5thnight in a row at 2:00 a.m. staring at the ceiling, my mind racing.  And I thought to myself, “think of something beautiful.  Picture something beautiful.” 
        So this is sad, but for the longest time I couldn’t.  I couldn’t pull up an image in my mind of one sunrise or sunset.  I couldn’t find image of (one of all the photo’s I’ve taken) trees, or paths or birds.  As I laid there I could name those things that were beautiful to me, but couldn’t make the neuropathways work to give me an image.  By now it was no longer sad, but scary.
        Only slowly a gate came to mind [we can do the Freudian interpretation some other time.]  A particular gate that I took a photograph of in 2011 at Holy Cross Monastery in Rostrevor, Northern Ireland.  Those who know me well, will already know that Holy Cross is a Benedictine Monastery founded for the express purpose of reconciliation.  Somewhere deep inside, my subconscious chose this image in which I could seek refuge in which there was beauty.
        So while I went through some pretty average stages of grief this week… from anger to lamenting to anger and back again…I knew it could not continue.  My spirit, as Spirit is wont to do said “enough is enough–move on–more specifically, move through the gate.”
        My righteous anger will still lead me in things to do to combat the barbarianisms of the president elect we saw and heard over the past 18 months.  I shall still work to do justice (for all), love mercy (for all) and walk humbly with my God hand in hand with indigenous people, migrant workers, the LBGTQ community, Muslims, sisters and anyone else marginalized.
        But it’s time for me to walk through the gate; leaving all that is past behind and reaching toward the goal.  What that means is that I will take control of myself and react in another way when the tears flow and the rage erupts. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon, I will look for something beautiful, something pleasing, something kind and generous to offer instead of more anger and hate.
        It’s time for me to walk through the gate; to at least (hopefully) demonstrate that it’s possible.  No one said easy, but possible.  I’ll walk through the gate given to me twice now at low moments in my life—and allow it to remind me that this is a new moment…now this is…now this is… and I have a choice in how to approach each new moment. Okay, I’m not perfect.  It’s likely some idiot will post something bogus on FB and I’ll be compelled to reply. I want to apologize in advance.
       Yet it is time for me to walk through the gate.  And I invite you to find your own image or metaphor and to hold onto it too.  I’ll begin on the road to reconciliation by posting one beautiful thing each day on the FB page of Peace River Spirituality Center and Sanctuary House of Sarasota. That way, something other than disgust will sprinkle through folks newsfeeds and minds. Offering beauty is a start to a new ending.
        If you are not ready to move towards your deep, unflappable center right now, I get it.  If you need to be angry and outraged a little longer, I understand.  If sadness still has you tightly bound, I’m so sorry for your pain.  We all have our own unique rhythm. 
       But here and now I go through this gate of my memory, that called to me in the darkness.  Here I go through this gate of my memory, that beckoned me to its silent beauty.  Here I go through this gate of my memory, that reminded me reconciliation is possible… and invited me to accept it so that I might turn back and extend a hand from the unfolding place of my own healing.
        Thanks for listening to my story.  It would be my privilege to hear yours.
                                       In the peace of the Lamb,
                           Kathleen
                                       Kathleen Bronagh Weller
                                         THE CELTIC MONK

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08/11/2016 · 2:58 am

LESSONS FROM THE GAME

       

So as I sit down to write, I’m a little bleary eyed from staying up to watch the final two games of the World Series where my long-suffering Cubbies finally brought it home.

        But as the photos and comments continue to fill social media, it occurs to me that there are lessons in this historic win for all of us–lessons we may sense but have not put into words.  So I have a quartet of options—you likely could add a few of your own. 

·         The plan was new. 

·         The key players are young. 

·         The leaders prepared.

·         The playing field, hostile.

PLAN.  If you were listening, you heard over and over again that Theo Epstein was trying something new.  Building from nothing (indeed 108 years without a championship is pretty much that). He did not look backwards to a glorious past…to old ways, old rules, old outcomes. He was writing a new chapter looking forward and creating a never-seen-before path and future.

PLAYERS. I know—I don’t like it either. I want to feel useful. I am useful.  But I’m no longer a key player, but in a supporting role. My job is to get out of the way enough for the growing talented to hope and shine. I’m not the first baseman, or pitcher or even catcher anymore…I’m a line coach. It’s important to always do an honest and perhaps searing inventory of who we are in the current situation at the current moment, and take a realistic part.

PREPARED LEADERSHIP.  During a post game interview a journalist asked Joe Maddon… “How do you get ready?”  Without a moments hesitation Maddon replied:  “…honestly the other thing is meditation. I love to meditate in the morning. I’m a big believer in meditation. Whether you want to call it prayer or meditation, whatever you want to call it, that to me is very, very helpful to just really get my mind right for the course of the day. So that when you do come to the moments, and you have to make a decision you feel convicted in that decision, and that is based on what you do prior to, during, and then after.”  Great leaders work from a clear, still center and not from the voices, advice, or pressures around them. 

PLAYING FIELD.  It would have been insanely awesome for the Cubs to have won the World Series at Wrigley Field.  Indeed the thousands that gathered there, hundreds of miles away from the actual game, was impressive.  But the final runs that put the Cubs ahead and the final out that sealed the victory was won at Progressive Field in Cleveland.  The game was won in a place where most voices were against them, on the very ground of their opponent.

 I find these lessons compelling in my own life.

 I could go on (and maybe I will at some time) about the players love of the game and one another.  I could go on about their goodness—which is a new dimension in a ‘high-ego” profession. Or how they kept saying they were doing this for those who went before… for people and for a place that was not their own.  I could say more, except it makes emotions roll down my cheeks.

  So this is just a reminder of the godly and goodly things I saw in a young bunch of guys known as the 2016 World Champion Cubs.  And hoping that others might take a look and learn from them too.

In peace and much, much joy,

Kathleen Bronagh Weller

THE CELTIC MONK

  

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19/06/2016 · 1:59 pm

Learning Atonement Anew…

  

                                

                                                                                                   

                                                 AT ONE MENT

     Just after breakfast a Mourning Dove perched on my window

ledge three stories above her earthly comfort zone.

    Upon seeing her there almost instantly ‘atonement’ came to mind.
Not the bloody kind theologians and scholars have steadily tried

to convince us of over the centuries…

    Instead, the at-one-ment of sensing her not afraid of me,

now only a foot away with a camera in hand that whirrs and buzzes. 

Nor me afraid of her, flapping and fluttering on my ten-inch wide

window ledge calling to her children or her mate in the familiar

“hoo – hoo – hoo.” Rather, we’re here together face to face without fear.

    She and I are one it seems; her purpose and mine the same.

Both of us learning to be and to become who God made us to be

before we were assigned a genus and species… like Zenaida macroura
or homo sapiens. And before we had names like Mourning Dove and
Kathleen, here now discovering our oneness with the Divine Being
from whom we came; and with each other.

    This is the Truth of atonement which Christ embodied, enabled and revealed; and which I’ve learned afresh in this sacred space of Gethsemani where
it seems all God’s creatures experience atonement.

Life wholly in Spiritus Sanctus.

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12/06/2016 · 3:42 am

REFLECTED BEAUTY

Chapel at St. John’s Abbey
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing some of the poetry I wrote while away this month along with some of the photo’s I took.  Hoping you will be blessed by it.    ~  KLW
Reflected beauty
        Clouds gliding effortlessly across mirrored sky-scrapers.
       Sherbet, rose and pale lavender skies Long after the sun has set on Siesta Key.
       The silhouette of your beloved on the steamy glass shower door.
      Sun-drops on the wind blown ripples of my favorite pond that look like a million points of light.
      All of these are reflected beauty.
      To which I could add the depth in the eyes of my grand-daughter in which I can see her ancestors three generations past, including me.
       Or simply the essence in each and every being…
       for isn’t all beauty reflected beauty really? Profound mirroring of the creator in every molecule of creation.
       It’s only the terminally proud who think they did it.
       It’s only the truly humble who see the Author in it all.

Be Blessed and be at peace my friends,
Kathleen Bronagh Weller~ The Celtic Monk

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19/02/2016 · 2:00 pm

FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME

No matter where I live, I am a Chicagoan. It’s sights and sounds (and sound-bytes) are in my head.

This week I listened to Chris Fabry Live, a radio call-in program that addressed the topic of Lent: who practiced, who didn’t, why some did, why others did not.  Callers lined up with their very nice sounding rationalizations for what they had already decided was true. I find most people who call in to talk shows don’t do it to listen or learn, but to share their already made up minds 😉 It was an amusing use of my ‘car time’.

But it seems that the conversation has stuck with me.  So while putting my k-cup in my coffee machine this morning a metaphor came to mind regarding what I heard and it was simply this: “for the love of the game.” For the love of the game, that’s why we observe the season of Lent.  It’s all about Love… and the game (sorry if it seems irreverent) is our relationship with/to God.  We keep Lent, we observe it, we do it, we practice it… for the love of the game.

“For the Love of the Game” is the shorthand for a clause Michael Jordan had written into his contract with the Chicago Bulls.  It seemed that pro contracts did not allow you to play/practice your sport outside of their purview.  Heaven forbid you should get hurt and no longer be a cash cow for your franchise! So he went to Jerry Krause, the Bulls General Manager and they worked out the “Love of the Game Clause”  which allowed Michael Jordan to play pick-up ball, or play anytime and any place he wanted.  Jordan believed that this extra curricular playing was one of the ways he had always used to sort out stuff in his life and clear his head.

So waiting for my coffee to brew this morning the radio call-in program on Lent and Michael Jordan’s “Love of the Game Clause” collided.  That’s it! I thought.  Our observance of Lent is like Jordan’s love of the game clause.  Lent is an invitation offered to those on the path of God’s love to sort ourselves out and clear our heads.  It’s a pick-up game in reflection, in prayers, in spiritual disciplines. It’s something added to our regular season just because we can and because it brings joy and growth and maybe even the good kind of tired at the end of a long day.

No one makes you play extra.  There is no coercion.  There is just the opportunity, like seeing a bunch of guys under the hoop at the park and walking over to join in.  There’s just that something that wells up inside for more and encourages you to make a plan, or a promise and then work it out over these 40 days.  Just because. No glory. No cheering crowds. No extra jewels in your crown. Just for the love of the game…

Over the years, whether during Lent or not, when I’ve committed to a spiritual practice of one kind or another… it has always been for the love of the game and I’ve never been disappointed. And it seems to me now that the One I meet on the court under the lights is not Michael Jordan (although that would be very cool) but is instead the Creator and Author of all that is, was and is to come. 

No one ever had to compel Michael Jordan to play basketball.  And my two-cents is we ought not need to be compelled to commit to the season of Lent.  If you are in this thing we call our life of faith “for the love of the game” I’d really like to hear what you have decided to do to keep these 40 days.  Please do drop me an email: thecelticmonk@att.net   It would be a privilege to pray for you while you’re out there on the court!

In peace and joy,

Kathleen Bronagh Weller  THECELTICMONK

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14/02/2016 · 12:41 am

LENT and MY 178 FACEBOOK FRIENDS

     It woke me this morning out of a sound sleep.We’ve been in the season of Lent for three days and I’ve still not decided how to observe these 40 days. Yes, I’ve made myself some promises of rearranging some things in my day to make more sense.  Things I probably have been putting off for too long.  But what might I do… proactively?

Over the years I’ve had my share of “giving up”  chocolate, movies, soda, ice cream [for me a real hardship] facebook, whole day fasts once a week, and for several years fasting all of Holy Week. This last one ruins Easter dinner, because that is no way to come off of a fast.

I’m already meditating in the morning before checking email WOW!  I’m already reading the Lenten devotionals from Laurence Freeman and James Martin.  But how to reach out.. how to touch?

So this is what really woke me at 3:53 a.m.  I feel led to pray for my “friends” on facebook.

It will come as no surprise that its not something in my routine.  I’m actually going to be surprised to find who is there when I go through the list!  But each day I’m going to pray my way through. No not just a “God bless Pattty and Timmy…” but really pray for each of them. 

Lying in bed I thought that would be about 100 folks and I still have 37 days left. No biggy. Imagine my surprise to find the list has inched up to 178 over the years.  Hmmm… 178 divided by 37…  4.81081081 people to pray for each day.

And when I pray, I’m going to their page and leave a note letting them know they were prayed for.

But why this… and why now?   Another thing that occurred to me at 3:53 a.m. is that my newsfeed is beginning to fill up with more and more 2nd hand information.  It is filled with posts folks are passing on because they love or hate something.  It’s filled with quick tips and ads and pretty pictures.  All of which I really LIKE.  But fewer and farther between, does someone just write what is on their mind or heart.  I miss those posts. (Sigh)

So I’m going to pray and post my way through Lent on the facebook pages of my 178 friends.  I’m going to leave behind the traces of a real breathing person instead of a re-post of a re-post of a re-post. 

I have no delusions of grandeur.  Likely I’ll find those people who have unfriended me.  I’ll pray for them anyway.  But in a world for which it seems isolation is a chosen state as much as a by-product of society, I’m going to offer the closest thing facebook has to human touch–a real post–with a little spiritual power thrown in by the grace and mercy of God.

If you are one of my 178, watch for your post/prayer on your page in these next seven weeks.  If you are not one of my 178 and would like a prayer, all you have to do is ask.  I’m off to begin.  Keep me in your prayers!

In peace and in great joy,

Kathleen Bronagh Weller  THECELTICMONK

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07/02/2016 · 2:21 am

An Opportunity to Consider Your Life: Past, Present, Future

        During my middler year in seminary, a classmate invited me to a workshop she’d decided to attend at Loyola University.  It was both a time and financial commitment for an unemployed student…but what I read about it was intriguing enough to go along.  Now, twenty-five years later, I have the opportunity to offer a similar invitation.  I’m going to “At a Journal Workshop”… do you want to come too?
       A couple of questions you might be asking yourself right now.  Do I really need a workshop to teach me how to journal?  I don’t even want to journal!  Why would I spend the time?  What is it I can hope to gain?  Is it really worth it?  Is this really something I should consider doing?  These are just a few, you can add your own.
       But, my invitation–based on my own experience–is sincere.  Over the past twenty-five years I’ve gone back to what I learned about my own life at my first workshop, again and again.  I’ve used Dr. Progoff’s system of asking deep questions to help me in discerning my life, events and opportunities.  I’ve taught some of his most helpful techniques in retreats and to others who have sought my input in their own decision-making. I’ve helped folks write Steppingstones–those touchstones of our life and experience that are formative; but may be invisible to us. And as it was for me, it’s helped people to really listen to their life with sincerity and often to find something new that they’d not considered.
       Ira Progoff, PhD. was a student of Carl Jung and himself a successful therapist. This method of journaling he pioneered, is structured to help us get at those things in the inner core of our being and to gain fuller perspective about ourselves.  It also guides us towards taking action in our life that we may have not yet seen or considered.  
      What I have found is that beyond being a tool of self-motivation or actualization, these few steps are a path of creativity, of healing and is deeply spiritual work.  It invites us into ourselves… and into the place of Spirit within…where God whispers at a level for which we might not often take the time to listen, hear or understand.
       Though the workshop is done in a group, your work is solitary.  There is no sharing what you write or think.  But together, we do our own wondering and remembering and are invited to write it down and explore it gently with ourselves.  I still recall my time at Loyola University in Chicago on the shore of Lake Michigan in 1991.  It became for me one of those markers in life, where from that place forward I would be changed.
        Peace River Spirituality Center @ Pine Shores Presbyterian Church is hosting a “At a Journal Workshop” event April 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th. You can register for Friday April 8th and Saturday April 9th, alone — or for all four days.  A block of rooms is being reserved at the Holiday Inn in Sarasota and a shuttle will be provided to and from the hotel to Pine Shores.  If you require Continuing Education credits, 12 CEU Credits are available. You can read more about the workshop, Dr. Progoff and Dialogue House at:     www.intensivejournal.org
        So again my invitation.  Join me!  I am so excited to be a part of bringing the Journal Workshop to Sarasota. I look forward to the work we’ll be doing together.  I’d love to answer any questions you may still have.  Email me: thecelticmonk@att.net   I also have a brochure that I can drop in snail mail to you or send as an attachment.
Blessings and Peace to you,
Kathleen Bronagh Weller 
thecelticmonk

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14/01/2016 · 2:27 am

PROPHETIC

As I came to the blog this morning, to check the date of an old story from last year I paused, a little amused, that since my post THE SOUND OF SHEER SILENCE in July–I haven’t written.  And it occurred to me that that previous title was to be PROPHETIC… as there followed a six month silence. 

Many of you already know that just weeks after that post I suffered a three part fracture of my left humerus.  And that there is nothing humorous about it.  Being left-handed only doubly disabled me.

Until quite recently, I dare not even use a key board because as the song goes… “the wrist bones connected to the arm bone… the arm bones connected to the…”  You get the point.  The repetitive movement of key strokes caused intense shoulder pain. And so there has indeed been in many ways in my life, the sound of sheer silence. 

My learnings, which still continue are many, varied and deep.  I quickly realized that I could not live my 110 percent life with only 40 percent mobility.  While at first angry and frustrated… I soon realized what my body was teaching me.  A wise friend assured me or perhaps chastened me when he said “even high performance engines only perform at about 70 percent.”  Hmmm… so my 110 percent life wasn’t realistic?  or sustainable? 

I also learned that moving more slowly through the world meant there were things I just could not do.  Some I could parse out to others.  Some things just would not get done.  There was no sense fretting, the universe (or at least mine) had shifted.  Putting it in practical terms, there was only one double batch of Christmas cookies this year instead of six which was my norm. 

Beginning August 13th I was on a path I did not choose, but I quickly surmised that there were things here to learn.  Not the least of which being that sometimes it takes a 2 x 4 to get my attention–or at least a life altering event. 

There has been nothing graceful about how I got here.  But it has been grace-filled.   As I reflect back my stumbling into this new reality has at times been comical.  For instance… not being able to sleep very long, or very well, each morning I dutifully went to my email and starred those things I wanted to act on and deleted others.  After about three weeks, I realized my habit of starring and returning later to the email was begun because I didn’t have the time in the morning to deal with them.  AND YET, it was such a habit that even when I did have the time (no place to go, nothing to do) my habit was not easily undone.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but it seems to me that through this circumstance, God allowed a lot of time and space for me to sit in the Sound of Sheer Silence I so desire; Silence that has always beckoned to me and beckons to me still.  This time has been an awful, horrible, painful gift. Labor and delivery if I can use that metaphor…to accept and receive what I long for most.

There is an old fashioned Christian concept we don’t talk about much anymore which defines this time in my life.  Most often its used of seasons of prayer…but isn’t all of our life our prayer? It comes to us from Ignatius the Spanish mystic–who writes about “Consolation” and “Desolation.” So while at first glance, my injury might look like desolation…I’ve lived in it long enough to know that it was actually a gift of consolation.  Not because of the fact of it-but because of where it led me. 

Life, especially life lived in the spirit is not as simple as consolations are always good and desolations are always bad. Ignatius knew that.  He knew that sometimes a life of consolation, comfort and ease can lead us to complacency and away from God; and that desolations far from being punishment are sometimes necessary and what we need to find our truth. 

I’m living the consolation of a tri-fractured humerus in much silence.  What are the current consolations or desolations in your life? What are they each teaching you?

I don’t wish for this kind of consolation for you or for me.  But its good to have the language and the theology that allows  us to look at what we experience even as “desolation” and find something else there.  As you use these concepts to “sit with” your life, I hope there are new learnings for you.

In grateful joy and peace,

Kathleen Bronagh Weller –  THE CELTIC MONK
 

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13/07/2015 · 1:28 am

The Sound of Sheer Silence

It’s Sunday morning at 4-ish a.m. and I’ve been woken by a storm raging out over the Gulf of Mexico. Raging, but there is not a sound to be heard except the hum of the refrigerator just now.  And of course the breathing of our two dogs Bear and Dexter who have jumped up onto the bed.

What woke me is this spectacular light show flashing brightly without ceasing.  From a sound sleep it took me a few minutes to orient myself to what all the light was about.  As first it seemed as though an electrical transformer had shorted-out with its accompanying firework-like display. But there was this eerie silence… and no popping or whizzing that comes with such an event.  When the lights did not stop, I got up to sit in my chair that faces west, towards the Gulf.

And now, for the past 90 minutes or so I’ve sat in this fantastical silence as the storm ever so slowly moves the light show northward, up the coast towards Tampa. 

Sitting in this interrupted darkness I am imagining (because it is beyond me to understand) the sheer power, real power, in these flickers and bright flashes that seem to come from nowhere in the pre dawn sky.  How distant must their genesis be to come to me with absolutely no sound…only now a few frogs and crickets, as I’ve moved to sit outside on the lanai.

My thoughts turn to the familiar passage from I Kings 19:  “The Word of the Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

But God was not in the wind, the earthquake, the fire…but in the sheer silence.  Indeed.  In your life and mine, without any sound and sometimes only glints and glimmers rather than flickers and flashes the God of the Universe makes Himself known and brings awesome power to bear in your life and mine for the single purpose of revealing His love to us.  To you.  To me.  Like the storm that is passing by in front of me just now, the Holy Spirit passes in and through our lives trying to attract our attention. Hoping we will stop and see.  Hoping we will come to know God’s intent to light up heaven and earth for us…so great is God’s love. 

I wonder how many times I’ve neglected to stand at the entrance to the cave looking out?  How many times have I instead hurried myself with things to do, places to go, people to see so that I missed God’s attempt to get my attention?  When’s the last time we answered the question for ourselves, or to God, “What am I doing here?”

I’ve been sitting here long enough now in the darkness, cell phone in hand typing this into my “Notes” with two thumbs (!) that the sky is beginning to turn navy blue.  The very tops of the thunderheads over the Gulf still flashing are starting to take on pink/orange hues from the sun rising at my back to the east.  The solitary sound of crickets now is joined by mockingbirds, whippoorwills, two morning doves, a cardinal and the first rumble of thunder.  Rain cannot be far behind.

As far as I remember, only once before have I been apprehended so literally, personally and powerfully by the Presence of the Love of God in nature.  I learned there, how to receive these moment or hours as pure gift. I couldn’t be more grateful for having been woken to experience God passing by in sheer silence.

Blessed Sabbath to you, my friends,

Kathleen Bronagh Weller, Obl.SB   THE CELTIC MONK

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23/03/2015 · 1:38 am

It is well…

My place in the cleft of the rock.
[Complete with pillow, journal, iPad and sweater]
 
I don’t have a hymnal handy, but these are the words going through my head:  “When peace like a river attendeth my way; when sorrows like sweet billows roll. Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul.”
 
Perhaps it’s no wonder.  Because for yet another Lenten season I’ve spent time with John the Beloved  and his very special perception of Jesus. What’s striking in Jesus’ life is that neither ‘peace’ nor ‘sorrow’ could shake the well-ness of His soul.  And as I again watched Him walk on water to the boat of the terrified disciples…it seems He was working overtime to teach that sure and certain wellness to His disciples. 
 
The picture above was taken last August at Easternpoint Retreat Center in Gloucester. It was a new place on the property I found to sit and think, journal, meditate and pray.  What you can’t see is that I’m only 10 or 15 feet from a high craggy edge that drops down to what was a turbulent Atlantic Ocean that week.  Sometimes the waves would crash so violently, they’d spray me with water.
 
It seems that the waters temperament, at the time, matched my own.  There were things crashing around inside of me…though I didn’t realize it till five or six days into the silence. The water I stared at from my place on the rock was a mirror of my soul.  I was drawn to its wildness, and unpredictability because it was so familiar. I felt one with it.  Staring into the deep all those days was what I needed for healing to begin. There came a moment…in an instant… when I realized this place I’d been invited to come to was a metaphor and God was able to begin the healing I needed.
 
My own realization of what was happening between my internal dis-ease and the Atlantic became so clear that I remember telling my spiritual director that morning “I don’t need to go back to the rocks anymore, something has changed.”  But it was only in retrospect that I learned how God had used the crashing tide to get my attention, to help me face myself, to put me in a position to move beyond the unrelenting seas inside and out.

And it became true “it is well, it is well, with my soul.”

I’m hoping and praying for you that there are those times and those places, that there are those rests for reflection in the busy-ness of your life.  Where is the place you go…the shore, a park, a favorite chair?  How and when do you take time to check in to see if it is well with your soul?  Would it surprise you to learn that God is trying to get your attention–to put you on a healing path–if you’d only stop to listen, to hear what is trying to speak all around you?

For me it was in the crashing, crushing surf that I heard God speak.  For you it may be in the song of a bird, or the pelting of rain, or the twinkling of stars overhead, or the opening of a flower. God can speak through all of His creation; and does.  So this is my final prayer as I prepare to push the button that will whisk this on its way to you.  That this week you will look to the vastness of the Good Creation to hear a message that will make it true for you that “it is well, it is well, with my soul.”

Standing with you on your journey in peace and joy,
Kathleen Bronagh Weller,  thecelticmonk 

 

 
 
 
     

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