Reflection:
Waiting in Hope
This reflection focuses on the season of advent, as a season of waiting in hope for new life and hope to be born. There is something so important about this gestation time, and this is what we explore here together.
Opening music:
Listen to the following as an opening prayer.
Sacred Reading:
Read the following poem through twice or three times, with an attitude of open receptivity. Allow a few minutes of silence between the readings. Listen for any words that call out to you, or that draw you into the sacredness of silence that is deeper than your usual knowing:
Reading: The unbroken, by Rashani Rea
There is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility out of whose depths emerges strength.
There is a hollow space too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being.
There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.
Questions for reflection:
● Do we trust that newness can be born within the tiredness and scrappiness of our lives?
● The Holy One calls "Do you trust me? Will you entrust yourself to me, as Creator Beloved who brings something out of nothing?"
Quiet Prayer:
Spend some time in quiet prayer, sitting in the stillness of these questions, in the surrender of the spacious nothingness, the fertile emptiness.
End the time of quiet prayer by listening to the following song:
Lyrics:
I cultivate a quiet place
Within this life of mine
I come to wait before the One
Who knows my heart's desire
In the stillness I have come
To wait before You God
And I find You in the waiting
And I find You in the waiting
You remind me in the stillness
To know You are God
You heard my cry so long before
I ever spoke a word
You knew my name so long before
The heavens touched the earth
In the stillness I have come
To wait before You God
For Further Reflection:
Below are quotes from the talk and some additional quotes for you to take this theme further.
Richard Rohr: "Barrenness and fruitfulness are the very basics of life. We experience ourselves as barren and impotent; then God comes into our sterile existence and creates new life. … We're all symbolically barren women who of ourselves cannot bring forth life into the world, but by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit we will bring forth the prophet. ... Yahweh always turns death into life, emptiness into fullness, barrenness into fertility, and in Mary's case, humanity into divinity."
Sue Monk Kidd: "The fullness of one's soul evolves slowly. We're asked to go within to gestate the newness God is trying to form; we're asked to collaborate with grace. … waiting provides the time and space necessary for grace to happen. Spirit needs a container to pour itself into. Grace needs an arena in which to incarnate. Waiting can be such a place, if we allow it."
Sue Monk Kidd: "Crisis, change, all the myriad upheavals that blister the spirit and leave us groping - they aren't voices simply of pain but also of creativity. And if we would only listen, we might hear such times beckoning us to a season of waiting, to the place of fertile emptiness. ... In the stayed-ness of waiting we find everything we need in order to grow. Suspended upside-down in the heart of the question, we touch the sacred spaces of real becoming."
Bede Griffiths: “God is not simply in the light, in the intelligible world, in the rational order, but God is in the darkness, in the womb, in the Mother, in the chaos from which the order comes. So the chaos is in God. This is why the darkness is so important. We tend to reject it as evil and negative, but darkness is the womb of life.”
David Frennette: "You cannot do anything to produce an experience of God in you, but you can say yes to receiving divine love, to awakening to this sacred gift. You can say yes to letting it come into your consciousness and transform the pain of your own contraction, separation, unconscious resistance, and self-isolating behavior. You can be transformed in God’s own image, awakening to the sun rising in you. You can let the Son of God shine the light of his love, let the Spirit move a little more freely through you" ...
The Spirit's presence in you "is a gift unfolding, like a flower that opens on its own, drawn forth by a light you can do nothing to produce or control. … It is more like being and allowing than self-accomplished busyness, … like a rose’s petals opening to the sunlight, like surrender unfolding inside you, like self-abandonment awakening within. Your action in contemplation is a radical consent to God’s eternal nature."
“Contemplative View” website: [This time of waiting] brings us face-to-face with the dark side of our personality. We may begin to perceive the dynamics of our unconscious and to recognize the damage that has been done to us in early childhood. Through the infusion of God’s light and love, God lets us see our weaknesses, deficiencies, and selfishness, which are the main sources of our emotional programs for happiness. Our faith grows and is purified and we move toward a permanent disposition of peace beyond the ups and downs of daily life."
Lamentations 3:21-26
Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed,
for Your compassions never fail.
They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait."
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in the Beloved,
to the one who seeks; it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
Ending prayer:
I wait for the Beloved, my whole being waits,
and in Your word I put my hope.
I wait for You in sacred silence, in the fertile emptiness,
more than the night-watch waits for the morning.
We put our hope in You, our Beloved,
for with You is unfailing love,
with You is fullness of Life.
As we open our hearts to your secret embrace,
May our barren lives become fertile and overflowing.
May our lives be for healing,
May our lives be for hope,
Amen
(Adapted from Psalm 130)
Ending music:
Lyrics:
My soul shall praise and magnify you Lord
Yes I will come, Yes I have come.
I hear your voice it's calling out my name
Into my life, You shall be born
All generations praise to hold with me
The sacred heart, my beating heart,
My soul is placed into this fire of love
Yes it becomes, God's will be done
The proud cannot hear beyond their words
Their thoughts enclosed, so stale and old
The rich cannot receive what they don't own
This emptiness, the spaciousness
All generations praise to hold with me
The sacred heart, my beating heart,
My soul is placed into this fire of love
Yes it becomes, God's will be done
Spread out the feast, let those in hunger come
Your face be shown, your love made known.
The humble hear your voice, with you they sing
Magnificat, Magnificat
All generations praise to hold with me
The sacred heart, my beating heart,
My soul is placed into this fire of love
Yes it becomes, God's will be done
Reach out to touch the world that is to come
Magnificat, magnificat
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Sharon's book that was previously called "Contemplative Living" has been republished by AnamChara Books under the title "Deeper: Finding the Depth Dimension Beneath the Surface of Life". The Kindle version is available from Amazon, and the hard copy version can be ordered from loot.co.za or Takealot, or from your local bookshop through Ingram Distribution.