Step Into the Clearing
“What does it mean to me to face where I am today?” Our friends participating in the CREATE! space, as part of the Center’s creative expressions offerings, present to us an opportunity to rest and reflect on this key question. Here, we are sharing a collection of those stirring responses that rose up in a recent gathering of the CREATE! participants. You are invited to consider your own response as each of us seeks to make sense of a jarring world around us. In the fullness of this season, the reflection prompts following the writings are an invitation to seek a time of peace and stillness in the Spirit. All are invited to come together online weekly every Thursday morning at 9am EST to be a part of this open creative expression space as we sense the Spirit’s movement and presence within us…
“The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” Job 33:4
First, there’s joy: a time to sit, Create!, be with a friend, love and laugh.
But what else is there?
The “typical,” the “usual,” the more common daily experience…
Oh, that?! Well…
There’s the tiredness of busyness – always something to do, to accomplish and the more frequent wondering – is it time to lay this aside, time to lean in to “no” as a complete sentence?
Then there’s family – the natural shifting that comes with the ages and stages of life and the discomfort of change: family, once close, now scattered; holidays that see many empty places at the table – some because of other commitments to new families, some gone from this world to the next.
And to this, and so much more, the subtext of the world being one of unrest … of tension … of crumbling structures and ideals…
And so, I live each day as best I can – some days well, others a bit off-kilter, confused, unsure, trusting that in my stumbling acceptance, somehow, I can touch another with love.
(written by Kathy Harvey Nelson for Create! – October 19, 2023)
How Are You Today?
Today I sit with some energy
Hope, faith in the future
Amid the deepening complexity
Of world affairs
Never ending need of prayer
For the suffering here and there…
Deliberate killing of the innocent
Taking over of other’s lands
Migrations
unwelcomed at borders
forced into the no man’s land of desperation
The dogs of war are loosed…
An accidental misfiring
Perhaps and
The world blame shifts
We are lost
How can we understand…
Hold it all close
The mystics say
Take no side
Hold the darkness
Hold the light
Go to neither
Hold all
Hold all
Let the spirit
Come…
(written by Maria Baber for Create! – October 19, 2023)
Open up.
Flow.
The harder you try, the more you constrict.
Relax.
Submit.
Let me flow through you-to all around.
(Written by April Fearon for Create!, October 19, 2023)
Facing injustice to people for whom I care deeply.
Angry as it all reverberates with my own story.
—the energy of temple table flipping
—the power of a rolling wave.
I want to scream!
Dear ones hurt by the very people privileged to care for such human treasures.
Arghhhhhhhhhh#*%$!!!!!
What can this anger teach me?
Wait…is that an empty space appearing behind the rage? Screaming subtly reveals a secret closet door.
Peeking, I see a sumptuous resting place
A sensual place of beauty and care.
Where I am drawn to enter
to sit
wait
welcome the dear ones in.
And I remember all the safe places
offered to me over the years.
As I re-member, re-connect,
I find peace deeper than the rage.
Ahhhhhhhh…
(Written by Laura Baber for Create!, October 19, 2023)
An Invitation to Reflect
How do you express what you feel?
What do we learn as we notice our feelings and where we sit in the midst of our lives?
How might your noticing speak to you of the Incarnation and Resurrection?
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10