Building a New Life; Becoming Dandy Again
Give me a dew-laden dandelion on a sun-swept morning and you’ll soon see me immersed in the glory and the beauty of it, camera in hand, oblivious to my surroundings, seeking to capture the very essence (and never succeeding) of what seems to me to be God’s greatest miracles in trinity: the dew, the dandelion and the morning sun.
My life lately has been nothing but change — drastic, frightening, extreme change. But I have a few constants. I have friends, family, my dogs, good books, good television (I’m currently lost in Lost), my church, my God, my wild front yard.
It is those beautiful and many constants that help me survive the panic. They help me to slow down and count — count and keep counting for they are too many to ever truly count — count my many blessings and many comforts.
This morning I read from Words for Silence by Gregory Fruehwirth, OJN:
“When the story of our lives—the one that we’ve created for ourselves—no longer makes sense, we almost always panic and immediately begin generating a new one. But the mystics point us to another possibility, what they often call the “way-less way.”
Fr. Gregory goes on to talk about mindfulness and living in the moment and breathing and being and such and so on. It’s less about “me” and more about “the Moment.”
“…but the way-less way point us to a different kind of consciousness in which there is very little “I” making a trek through time, and the present moment takes on much more importance.
“Mindfulness and conscious breathing, for those called to live with less of a narrative, are almost survival techniques. Practicing them is like growing a set of lungs after having been tossed out of the miasmal pond onto the frightfully sunlit, hard land. Mindfulness and conscious breathing help us to learn that it is OK to let go of the ego’s concern for itself in a grand story, and stripped of this narrative, to stand in the present moment where God is, receiving and responding in a new kind of freedom.”
Just sit with that for a moment…
prayers for the oft traveled road 
I’ve found this teaching to be true….and in times of change that bring on anxiety……just letting some time pass.
I am finding myself listening through books, people, sometimes tv, to hear God’s voice. In a little book by Philip St. Roman, “Reflecting on the Serenity Prayer” he talks about Dame Julian of Norwich’s visions in which God speaks to her – “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.” (He adds, All is well in God’s world and always will be.”
Lately if I am in a passing state of panic, I think about that. And it helps. I just feel it.
Thank you for being one of the voices who God speaks to me through. Your ability to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and take a picture, share a passage, write a story is evidence that God won’t leave us alone- ever. You are a fabulous human being!
Oh Cindy, you make me cry. I am so grateful for you. There is a giant, grateful, hard hug in this email. I hope you can feel it, friend.