Richard Wagamese truly touched my heart today. I am working on a course called “personal spirituality” and we are reading many of the classics. Writers and theologians like St. Augustine, Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, and John Bunyan and I am thoroughly enjoying this experience of awe.
The best part of this course is the mini lectures by the prof, Carol Penner, where she gives us the cultural and historical background of these writers. Who they are and a snapshot of the times they lived in. Simply reading the words meant little to me until I paired it with the historical time frame.
I think about my own journey since 2004 when I began the niggling’s of church leadership and following a theological path. That is 22 years ago now! So much has happened, changed and evolved for me in my journey. In 2004 my kids were 18 and 16 and I was steeped in the bottle, drowning in a functional lifestyle petrified of being found out what a fraud I was. My teenagers were floating along with me, seeking to be heard and cared about. I have no idea if I did that and I am afraid to ask.
Over the next three years (2004 – 2006) I continued to be nudged, called and inspired to learn what it means to be spiritual. I was restless, challenged and hungry for anything to anchor me to something that was safe and healthy. Nothing seemed to work. I was considered “odd”, along with impetuous, loud and out of control. In hindsight I was all those things. I can see clearly now, as Dr. Wayne Dyer says in his book of the same title, it was the plantings of the seeds that time would take care of. This land of odd was the garden of promise I was invited to till and tend. The question asked quietly by source was, ‘Are you up for the task? It won’t be easy.’
Over the past 22 years I tended this garden of gawd, sometimes recklessly, carelessly and angrily most often with reverence, knowing, deeply rooted is the wee small voice of closeness to sanctuary. Sanctuary meaning a place of refuge, safety and holiness. I was called to cull my own destruction and it has taken all this time to do so. In saying that, I am not finished yet, I have much to do.
When we are called to cull it is an action that can been seen as disposing of that not worthy. The word cull comes from the Latin colligere which means (“to gather”) so to cull, we can gather that which serves us best and let go of that which does not. Wagamese says, “I want to move through my days floored by the magnificence and generosity of my creator.” It is here I look back 22 years and find these moments of magnificence and generosity are in the culling, both letting go and gathering in and marvel.
What are you called to gather?
What are you called to let go?
Prayerfully and spiritually reach into the depths of your garden and look for the seeds. There in tiny packages waiting to be opened and scattered.
“Freedom is letting go of bounds and barriers, and hurling yourself into the adventure of living. That’s how you build a book of moments, a love, a friendship, a family.” Richard Wagamese (pg 78, Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations)
Like this flower, open your mouth and allow your tongue to taste life in its fullness, invite the birds, bees and ants to crawl around gathering information and food.
#breakingstibah 