Sail Away Sweet Sister

This is all about God, prayer, community, music, art, poetry, theology, love and all sorts of things people run into on their life journey, especially when the second half of life is looming ahead. It is inspired by Fr Richard Rohr, by the Contemplative Outreach of Fr Thomas Keating, by C.G. Jung, by C.S. Lewis, Alan Watts, St Beuno's retreat house and all the communities I have a privilege to belong to. It is dedicated to and I hope will be used by my nearest and dearest, scattered all over the planet, and who are falling upwards with me.

Friday, 30 December 2011

Breaking of the Patterns

The joy of total surrender comes in waves of self-denial. I had never thought I was able to bear as much reality and live. Stripping off the bandages and the rags covering old wounds, layer by layer. Fresh air rushing in, and the dear self bleeding, in tears, aching like hell every day, because it is being denied the right to hurt. 

But love is simply there, standing still within the turmoil, unharmed, there for you whatever you do or say. It will not go away. It will not vanish nor be denied to you, unless you reject it. Even then, it would simply sit quietly in a corner, invisible for your eyes.

We alter reality and change our lives by refusing to react to the same situations in the same destructive way. This is the radical novelty. This is the breaking, breath-taking news . This is the souls in transition.

I would like 2012 to be the International Year for the Breaking of the Patterns. 
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3 comments:

  1. lizz30 December 2011 at 23:26

    maybe you should hold a "vide grenier" Richard and sell it all off and do something fun with the money you make - or give it away! Be radical (I'm trying to give advice to myself; oh to be radical! I once was, now I'm afraid of causing pain to others)


    rain here; rain had fallen rain on rain, rain on rain, in the bleak mid-winter, here it comes again



    Ooooh look, I wrote a poem too :-)


    I have a feeling that things will be better tomorrow, for a start M's coming - hooray!


    Enjoy the sunshine Richard darling one.


    I'm going to take M's advice and try to react differently to the recurring situations.


    Here we go, leaping into 2012 weeeeeeeeeeeeee


    let's hold hands as we jump, all 3?


    kiss you both

    ReplyDelete
  2. M.30 December 2011 at 23:41

    There will be more than 3 of us! I can count at least... wait... 5 more! And they will be holding their own as well!

    And so on.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Richard (E)sq.31 December 2011 at 02:45

    I give a wry smile at your last comment, M - totted them up on my fingers and nodded. Yes, we will be holding them and they will be holding themselves and we are holding each other and holding ourselves and it is all how the year has been and now things are not the same anymore. So, the patterns have actually been broken already and we have to do this continually - radical renewal each day.

    On this final day of 2011, and with you two darling ones asleep, I trust, I look out at the treetops and the breeze blowing the acacia leaves, and I give thanks for all that has been, all the building up and stripping away, the expected and the unexpected, the normal and the numinous breaking through the normal. All is transformed, and all is being transformed, but all shall be well.

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