Doors and Paths

I invite you to pause for a moment and take some time for some contemplative play.

Start by letting this image fill your mind as you focus on your breath and letting yourself slow down into this time and this space.  Letting your breath and this picture be all that you attend to right now.

What doors are open to you on this Holy Week journey?  Who is journeying with you this week? What are you giving to each other?

Consider these questions also:

What do you see?
What colors stand out to you? Why?
What does your imagination do with this picture?
What words come to mind?
What favorite quotes from your favorite spiritual literature come to mind?


I invite you to join in conversation with me in the comments below what has come of your contemplative play time today.

Journeying

Journeying is an act
of movement and rest.
Of being and doing.

Journeying is not a sprint,
it is an intentional meander
where one must be willing to
pause and ponder
but also to
press on at times.

This journeying I am doing
is teaching me
awareness of the ebb and flow.
It is teaching me
grace for the times
I feel guilt over
being lax in my journeying work.

It is in this space of grace
that this doer
is learning the importance
of rest and pause.

It is in this rest and pause that this doer
has learned to see the rest as just being,
as nourishment
for the next part of the journey
that will require strength to
press on,
to go deep,
to do active work.

To be a journeyer
is to be able to
embrace self grace
and self compassion.

Or so it is that
this journeyer
is just beginning to learn.

This is my journeying lesson,
what is yours?

Looking Up

I invite you to pause for a moment and take some time for some contemplative play.

Start by letting this image fill your mind as you focus on your breath and letting yourself slow down into this time and this space.  Letting your breath and this picture be all that you attend to right now.

How might your perspective change if you paused to just look up today?

Consider these questions also:

What do you see?
What colors stand out to you? Why?
What does your imagination do with this picture?
What words come to mind?
What favorite quotes from your favorite spiritual literature come to mind?


I invite you to join in conversation with me in the comments below what has come of your contemplative play time today.

Release

I want to hold this

tightly to my breast,
this most cherished thing
of mine.

I want to hold it close,
protect it,
nurture it,
keep it mine.

But living life
is not about
holding everything
so close
it can not breathe.

So close,
I can not breathe.

Living life
is a a call
to letting go.

But this letting go
is not just
giving something up.

It can be giving
something,
someone
wings to fly.

It can be a gentle release
watching our
cherished "thing"
flutter off
into it's own space.

So that I might have more room to live.

Close Up Beauty

I invite you to pause for a moment and take some time for some contemplative play.

Start by letting this image fill your mind as you focus on your breath and letting yourself slow down into this time and this space.  Letting your breath and this picture be all that you attend to right now.

I needed some color, hope for spring and beauty.  What is it that you need or want to take a close up look at? What might that close up look provide for you?

Consider these questions also:

What do you see?
What colors stand out to you? Why?
What does your imagination do with this picture?
What words come to mind?
What favorite quotes from your favorite spiritual literature come to mind?


I invite you to join in conversation with me in the comments below what has come of your contemplative play time today.

Come Sit With Me

Come sit with me in silence.
Please do not feel the need
to fill it with words.

Come sit with me in silence.
Be willing to open yourself
to feel what my silence tells.

Come sit with me in silence.
Please listen deeply to it.

Come sit with me in my silence,
because it speaks the words
I can not voice.

It is only after being with me in my silence
that I will feel you are ready
to hear the words of my heart.

It is only after sitting with me in my silence
that you will be ready to understand my words.

Inspired by a line from a poem the poem "If you don't understand my silence you won't understand my words" by Emma Marriott.

New Growth

I invite you to pause for a moment and take some time for some contemplative play.

Start by letting this image fill your mind as you focus on your breath and letting yourself slow down into this time and this space.  Letting your breath and this picture be all that you attend to right now.

What new growth is springing up in you? What needs to spring up in you?

Consider these questions also:

What do you see?
What colors stand out to you? Why?
What does your imagination do with this picture?
What words come to mind?
What favorite quotes from your favorite spiritual literature come to mind?


I invite you to join in conversation with me in the comments below what has come of your contemplative play time today.

In Your Image

I don’t usually explain my contemplative poetry and just let it speak for itself.  However, today’s poetry feels like it needs a few words. I wrote this about a week after I had an elective surgery as a way of processing my thoughts and feelings surrounding the surgery and its results. I never intended to post it publicly, but as weeks have moved on I have felt the nudging of the Holy Spirit to put these words out there, I do not yet know why.  

It feels very scary being vulnerable and open about this particular thought process. But if I tell those I minister to that there can be strength in vulnerability and it’s ok to be scared when opening our thoughts and feelings to others, then I must also practice what I preach. So here I am opening my inner most thoughts about this to you.

In Your Image

God, I am created in your image.

Fearfully and wonderfully made.

So what does it mean that I have chosen to change that image?

You know – the physical one.

The body that is mine.

The body that has that one part

that in it’s abundance created physical pain.

God, I am created in your image

And your image I believe is not one that

You want to cause pain.

You want this image to be one

I can love and live life in.

And so I chose to find healing in reducing

the body part that gave pain.

To find healing in a better proportioned body.

But that also means letting go of an image.

The image of my body

I have seen in the mirror for over 30 years.

There is grief in this letting go.

As I grieve I also embrace –

Embrace the new body

that represents the possibility

of living without pain.

I embrace that I am made in your image.

And that my choice to change my physical image

does not change that.

Because perhaps what you are really talking about

when saying I am created in your image -

is my heart.

It is in my love for the other.

my compassion for all living things.

my desire to be in communion with you

That makes me created in your image.

And in the comfort of that thought,

maybe now I can settle into

the me I now see in the mirror

and see that my new body,

is also

Created In Your Image.

AMEN.