I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection
Philippians 3:10
Death is our illusion,
our wish to belong only
to ourselves, which is our freedom
to kill one another.
From this sleep may we too
rise, as out of the dark grave.
Wendell Berry
Image: Bruno Walpoth, Lontane speranze, (Distant hopes) 2015
Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with your innumerable choices, all your life long you are turning this central thing….either into a creation that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.
C. S. Lewis
I ask that I be free enough to choose whatever the
leading of God’s grace is his particular call to me.
Ignatius of Loyola
Recall your life in the past years/weeks/days. Through all of life’s changes and chances, have your choices led you to a fuller life, and to actions that make for a better world? Are you growing in a sense of God as “the dearest freshness deep down things”?
Instead of thinking about what you are being called to do, ask who you are being called to be?
What aspect of God are you being called to embody and express?
Where are you already living this aspect of God?
What are you being asked to foster and nurture?
Instead of trying to “guess’’ what God might be wanting,
take time and open yourself to the mystery of grace at work in and through all things.
Imagine God looking at you, at your life circumstances
and imagine what God might be thinking and feeling.
Remember God is all goodness, and wants your good.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed….
Mary Oliver
Image: Bruno Walpoth, Time to be free, 2020
The images in this post are of sculptures by the Italian sculptor, Bruno Walpoth. He creates sculptures in wood of life size figures, taken from real life models, ordinary people whom he observes in great detail and who seem to be aloof while reflecting to the viewer a sense of themselves.
The question arises whether his figures look optimistically to the future or if they are caught in their own melancholic blues. They are not in action, and remain unmoved by their surroundings. There are no eyes wandering in search for contact, no eye-catching, but instead, as befits their existence, they are restrained and inwardly focused. If the viewer is prepared to deal with this and to give something of himself, an encounter becomes possible. Meeting up with ourselves is a rarity in our day. This is at once a great gift and a great challenge, since such an encounter with one‘s self is not only the most complicated but also the most inevitable of all our relationships. Source: Bruno Walpoth
To complete this meditation you may like to spend twenty minutes in contemplation of the Psalms in this video that integrates music, poetry, short excerpts of fiction, visual art, and quotes from van Gogh, Tchaikovsky, Goethe, Luther, and others, resulting in a contemplative multimedia experience.
For a printable PDF of the text of this meditation please click on the link below.
