adventure, risk, simplicity and compassion: listening for God's desire in my heart

He (or she) who clutches desperately to security, to every day habits, work, organization, friends, family, no longer lives. More than security, life needs adventure, risk, dynamic activity, self-giving, presence to others.  Jean Vanier, Tears of Silence.

This quote showed up for me at just the right time - and spoke to my heart like water to a parched plant. Di and I are entering a new encounter with simple living: for the past year we have been physically and emotionally letting go of things, memories and activities that do not strengthen our commitment to compassion. We have been on this journey together for nearly 25 years. And once again, we sense a need to go deeper. Retirement, obviously, is one manifestation of this; but the sacred invitation to live beyond the "tyranny of the normal" is at the core.

The Jesuit priest, James Martin, articulates this longing as sacred desire. Writing in the journal, America, Martin notes that sometimes our prayers evoke a strong sense of yearning within our hearts.

For example, you might be praying about a Gospel passage and suddenly feel an urge to follow Jesus more closely. That is, while praying you may experience a powerful attraction to the person of Jesus. You want to know more about him, read more about him, and spend more time praying about him. Where do these desires come from? From God. Not every desire that arises in prayer is from God. You have to discern, too, to see what makes sense and what fits in terms of what you know about God. But something like a desire to follow Christ is clearly coming from God. 

The Franciscan, Richard Rohr, suggests that a desire to live into the holy is born through silence: "Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, (encouraging us) to choose gratitude until we are grateful and praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise." We are fundamentally uncertain of sacred desires when we are too busy, too tired, too anxious, too noisy, and too self-absorbed. In a recent reflection Rohr wrote:

We don’t come to the monastery (or to prayer or contemplation) to get away from suffering; we come to hold the suffering of all the world.” [Thomas Merton] This can only be done by plugging into a larger consciousness through contemplation. No longer focused on our own individual private perfection—or what Merton called “our personal salvation project”—we become fully human... by opening our hearts to God.

Right after Easter 2018, Di and I went to the Eastern Townships of Quebec for a few days of solitude. We needed to be quiet together. To walk in the woods. To listen to our hearts as well as the yearning God was sharing with us for deeper acts of compassion. We came away with a commitment to "beholding" - let this be a year of embracing what God was already revealing to us - a time of discernment rather than rushed action. A time to honor, listen to, and trust the risky desires revealed to our hearts. I have used this icon since that retreat as it captures the essence of beholding...

Little by little - and I have come to trust that most of God's blessings come in the small, hidden and often obscure realities of real life - our commitment to beholding is bringing clarity. We have more work to do in paring down what is unessential. We have more listening and trusting to discern, too. But just the other day, one of my oldest and dearest friends and mentors sent me this photo - and it too arrived at just the right time. The short version in English reads something like: I don't know what to pray, I don't know what to say, I don't have a lot of time. So... the candle I light is my small offering of goodness, time and self. I place it before the Lord and the Blessed Virgin... may this candle symbolize my prayer with all my being.

While cutting back the relentless wild bramble in our backyard wetlands today, I heard nature speak to me: without repeated times of quiet listening, the weeds will overwhelm the beauty. More and more I am coming to trust that the holy revealed in reality is a reliable mentor. It made me think of altering the ancient admonition, "be still... and know that I am God" to, "be still... to know that I am God."