Fall in Love…

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

Attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ (1907–1991)

I found this wonderful poem on ignatianspirituality.com (a blog well worth visiting) and it really moved me. So I thought I would post it just in case it moves you too 🙂

Picture is ‘thought for the day’ by Jonny Baker on Flickr

Between …

Liminal space is disorienting and disturbing because you are not fully in control. This is true faith and it can be frightening. Yet whenever you risk following Christ’s call, astonishing things occur. We know the One who calls is the one who saves. The life of faith means at least this: living in liminal space-cultivating the capacity of heart to hear Christ’s invitation and stepping out of comfortable, yet unsatisfying structures toward a future that only God knows. Once we grasp that Peter did not drown and neither will we, then a wild freedom begins.

Roy Howard (from inward/outward)

I read this the day after our last Kirk Session meeting. It really captures the mood of that meeting as we are a congregation in a liminal space.

It really is disturbing when the future is not in your hands, when things are out of control with no resolution in sight.

But the call is the same for us –  to trust the one who saves, to listen for his call to leave the old things behind and to step forward in faith towards the new, towards a future that is in God’s hands now.

Picture is ‘still’ by Jonny Baker on Flickr

Impossible things become possible

Jesus didn’t send the hungry away. He never does. Undaunted by the magnitude of the need, he does the compassionate deed with what is at hand. This is the miracle of compassion that his followers are invited to repeat. Take what is at hand-a little of this and a little of that-and give it away to God’s hungry people, believing that God will do wonders with our offerings.

Jesus takes the small things, like a cup of water and loaf of bread, and does what compassion calls for at the precise moment. He refuses to be overwhelmed, either by his own need for comfort or the urgent needs of the people. Instead of anxiety about not having enough, he looks upon the face of human hunger and does the next right thing…

Albert Einstein famously said, “The way I see it, you have two ways to live your life: one, as if no miracles exist and the other, as though everything is a miracle.” To be open to the miraculous is to be open to impossible things becoming possible. It is a stance toward life that is fundamentally hopeful, one that places confidence in God always, and is especially confident when all other sources have run out.

Roy Howard (found on  inward/outward)

…there is no rush

The theology of progress forces us to act before we are ready. We speak before we know what to say. We respond before we feel the truth of what we know… 

There is no rush to get to the end, because we are never finished.

Take time to rest, and eat, and drink, and be refreshed.

(Wayne Muller found on inward/outward)

This challenged me today on a number of levels.

The past week has been filled with the unexpected and I felt compelled to respond before I was ready. Only time will tell if the decisions I made were the right ones.

Also I am always in a hurry, so impatient to move forward and to tick things off my ‘to do list’ as soon as possible. So I was challenged by the last part of this reflection, particularly as it closely mirrored some advice I was given at the weekend.

There is no rush to get to the end, because we are never finished.

Why am I impatient, in a hurry to get to the end? There is always going to be work to do! So this week I am taking a deep breath and I am finding those moments for rest, reflection and peace.

Picture is ‘M3 South Bound’ by Mike Lockie on Flickr