seek to rest in the good, the true, and the beautiful.
It is the only resting place that also allows us to bear the darkness.
Hard and soft, difficult and easy, pain and ecstasy do not eliminate one another, but actually allow each other.
They bow back and forth like dancers,
although it is harder to bow to pain and to failure.
If you look deeply inside every success, there are already seeds and signs of limits;
if you look inside every failure, there are also seeds and signs of opportunity.” Fr Richard Rohr
This quote from Father Richard Rohr guided much of our week, and each time it was shared something different sparkled at me. (See the italics, underlined, and bold phrases). I’ve always been someone who is drawn to the grayness of things. I can easily see many sides to an argument and see the truth in different perspectives. This quote feels like my lived experience of the world. Everything seems to blossom into each other. Everything seems to hold space. It’s not a math equation. It’s not really logical. But it feels right and fluid and true. At least for me. Maybe for you too. Or maybe not.
In these words it feels like wind...the wind of this spring time, shaking everything out of sleepiness and into life and awakeness. I wonder what needs to be awakened within you this spring season. It’s strange, however, to feel the pull of liberty from hibernation in a time when we’re experiencing restriction. “If you look deeply inside every success, there are already seeds and signs of limits,” Rohr says...that feels painfully true.
It is hard to be apart, and yet it is still necessary. It feels primal, in a way, to be called out by nature and asked to re-emerge, but it’s still not time. At least not for human gatherings. But if we stay focused on what we can’t do (and to be clear it’s good and normal to feel the heaviness sometimes) we could miss the opportunity for a spiritual emerging experience. Who knows what this week, this beginning of a new month will bring. I invite us to be open to a new spring experience. Even while apart, it is still worthwhile to engage and connect our spirits to the Sacred and each other. There is renewal, restoration, and joy. Leaning into those will allow us to bear the heaviness of this season of separation.
In the meantime, feel the wind, allow it to shake out of you what needs to be let go.
