Hidden Wholeness

[sirguessalot]

I've never been on a retreat, so forgive me. Do I say, have fun? Learn lots? Whatever, I do wish you well.

thanx, veganxtc

and yeah...i'm never sure what to say, either

"see you on the other side" ...perhaps?

i dunno

some day i would like to think i can find the courage to write of my experiences here

who knows...maybe i'll find a voice for it during the retreat

we'll see, i guess

"If I ascend to heaven, thou art there; / If I make my bed in Sheol, lo, thou art there!"

gawd...this really is one of my favorite lines from a song

it says so much, ihmo, one could spend many days and weeks and months with just it

cuz it really seems to challenge the notion that one can be outside of God's presence

or that God can be somehow be distant or away or elsewhere in some other place than within God

which perhaps, is a big part of why the song has been used in end of life care for so many thousands of years

and in many cultures and religions

...

ive heard it said

that hell goes all the way to hell

and heaven goes all the way to heaven

no matter where you sit

the rungs of jacob's ladder

go forever in both directions

and no matter what rung you wake up and find yourself upon

there is always still a rung directly above

and a rung directly below

though depending on the object of our attention

one may not always realize this very ordinary thing

Hidden wholeness...I was thinking about something that might be the opposite...hidden brokenness.

yep...what is hidden is hidden

and if one cant respond to what is broken

(though that sense of sense of self will be 'smoking like a wick'

one's perspective does not include the whole picture

perhaps its not that we are 'becoming something new'

but that we are really just becoming more 'wholly aware' of that which we already are

by taking a step or more 'backward within' and adding new perspectives to those we already have

so that one can see, or more deeply feel (or touches) that which has always already been there

'from the beginning,' as it were

we gain a radically newer sense of our same ole original self

which is how we are simply angels sitting on rungs

and have already come a long long long way

on a journey that will never ever end

[sirguessalot]

sitting here reading around a bit more

and found where Parker Palmer found the title for his book "hidden wholeness"

from "Hagia Sophia" by Thomas Merton:

"There is in all things an invisible fecundity,

a dimmed light,

a meek namelessness,

a hidden wholeness,

This mysterious Unity,

and Integrity,

is Wisdom,

the Mother of all,

Natura naturans"

i had to look-up "fecundity"

= pregnant, fertile, etc...

Edited October 15, 2006 by sirguessalot