unknowing (reprise)

I now realize, God, how much You have given me.  So much that was beautiful and so much that was hard to bear.  Yet whenever I showed myself ready to bear it, the hard was directly transformed into the beautiful.  And the beautiful was sometimes much harder to bear, so overpowering did it seem.  To think that one small human heart can experience so much, oh God, so much suffering and so much love, I am so grateful to You, God for having chosen my heart, in these times, to experience all the things it has experienced. (An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum)

In life one cannot awaken often enough the sense of a beginning within oneself.  There is so little external change needed for that since we actually transform the world from within our hearts.  If the heart longs for nothing but to be new and unlimited, the world is instantly the same as on the day of its creation and infinite. (The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke)

How are we to avoid losing heart when we find ourselves facing "the hard" in our lives?  Hillesum and Rilke echo Jesus in their distinctive ways in calling us to awaken a sense of a new beginning within ourselves, to improvise a new way not defined by the limitations of our affliction.  "Love is a direction and not a state of being."
     We find our way through the crevasse of affliction, when we do, by opening ourselves to what we do not yet know.  On this way, we discover our capacity to begin anew, to be born afresh, to "make a beginning within ourselves" when facing "the hard" in our lives.  To go forward in this way amid the afflictions we face invites us, with Jesus, to imagine a new birth, to sense a new beginning, to improvise a new path--one as free as the wind from certainties and expectations.  As a way of love this calls us to a direction of the heart and not a destination, one which opens us to "a dazzling and dynamic alternative with which to start afresh" in our lives.  To live in this direction welcomes us in the way and the truth and the life of improvisation, an incarnating of love that calls us to live more fully into the present moment--come what may.  And, when we have lost our path in the wilderness, this is itself the way home. (from Love is a Direction by Mark S. Burrows and John H. Olson, Jr. in Weavings, Volume XXVII, Number 4, p. 14, 16-17)


As God so often does with me, once again He has shown himself as One who speaks in themes.  I read this article this morning and it fit right in with the many people, ways and places God has been speaking into my life lately, so I thought I would share.  I only get one periodical on a regular basis, which has been the case for many years.  And this one regular piece I get is Weavings .  It consistently provides my soul with fresh breath and life.  Maybe it will yous too.