resting into the slow and small rhythm of the holy...

"I listen to the wind, the wind of my soul - I let my music take me where my heart wants to go..."

That's always been one of my favorite Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam songs,"The Wind," in any iteration. Last night, quite by accident, I started playing with a radically deconstructed jazz take on it that may yet see the light of day. It may even fit with the theme of this week's Sunday live streaming on Be Still and Know @ 9:55 am (go to: https://www.facebook.com/Be-Still-and-Know-913217865701531/ and scroll down.)

One of the wandering thoughts blowing around my soul is how everything can be a gift - and I want to include every thing - like this poem by Rumi suggests.

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all.

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows

who violently sweet your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, 

meet them at the door laughing, 

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

This is where I want to live - not that I am anywhere close - but just knowing where I want to go moves me in the right direction. I wonder if this is part of what Jesus meant in St. Matthew's gospel when he told his friends: 

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Become mature and balanced just like the Lord your God is in harmony with all of creation. (My rephrased last verse. "Perfect" in this context in Greek, teleios - τέλειος, means to become complete and whole as God intended; thus, it has been rendered perfect, but mature and balanced is more accurate.)

Jung used to encourage us to love our "enemy feelings" - all our wounded, naked, imprisoned, and frightening truths within that we would rather hide or deny - for as we befriend them, we become peace-makers. And Jesus called the peace makers "children of God" - women and men who bear the image of the holy in their humanity as we move into balance and a measure of humility. Parker Palmer wrote: "When sharing among peers, we sometimes tend to give advice to solve a person's problem. But we must keep in mind one simple thing: the human soul does not want to be fixed, it simply wants to be seen and heard." I like the how Teilhard de Chardin puts it: "Above all, trust in the slow work of God."

We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually – let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don't try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Resting into the slow and small rhythm of the holy is my birthday prayer this year.