Forgotten my way
Pressured from all sides
No escape this time
Had to die again
Die from old self
Shed my skin
Agonizing
Vulnerable
Terror
Gave up
Gave in
Lost and rotting
Slowly woke
Lost Light found
Eyes opened
Now
One
I Am
Risen
Suffering
He showed us #poem #Jesus
His life showed us the way of love and restoration
The road of life is often down before it is up
In His suffering and death He embraced the suffering of men and the Earth
We also need to surrender, trust and drink our cup
In his resurrection He shouted out that Love always wins
Let His Love be our life
Note: This poem is about life in general and does not advice people to accept abusive or criminal behaviour.
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#Knowing
I believe in a knowing that you can experience more and more by listening to the small voice within and by walking the path set before you. This is most likely a path that at times will bring confusion and despair, but also hope, love and grace.
There are ways for you to grow from being governed by your ego to being more and more guided, led and held by this inner knowing. The poet Rilke once wrote or said “the only journey is the journey within”. He is both right, and wrong. Wrong if his words are taken too literally. I truly believe in the journey within as a journey we are called to take, especially in the afternoon of life. Richard Rohr inspired by Jung writes about the first and second half of life in his wise book “Falling Upward”. When I say that understood too literally the words from Rilke can be “wrong”, I mean that there is always a need for balance. We need to look both outside and inside.
For me going cross-country skiing or hiking in the mountains are great ways to observe beautiful landscapes and God’s magnificent creation outside myself. At the same time these seemingly outside-yourself-experiences are also inner experiences. The beauty that I see resonates with something deep within me. What I see outside and around me connects with and gives birth to a knowing within me. So, the journey within is in a way the most important, but we also need to contemplate the beauty outside to experience a connection to our inner life and to spirit.
It is true what Augustin said “my soul is restless until it finds its rest in you”. As we grow up spiritually and connect with God’s spirit and our deepest self within we find a knowing and also a rest.
All of us have different life stories. Some have experienced very close and loving relationships when they were children and just beginners on their journeys. Others have experienced more troublesome childhoods, loneliness and a lack of true love and embrace. All of us have our own journeys to take. For some it may take many years to grow into this deeper knowing. Some also have to go through therapy to get there.
No matter what, I believe in this deeper knowing which becomes an intuitive knowledge of eternal truths and a knowing of true love. The knowing you experience makes dogmas less important and even less true, because truths that we know within are often simple and universal. The first and most universal truth I think, is that the universe is filled with love. We as well as the whole universe are created out of love. We are created and also placed in this world by a Love.
What about all the pain and suffering you say? Where is this love that you are talking about? For myself, life has noe been an easy walk either. All I can say today, I see you. Yes, there is great suffering and pain in this world. Yes, there is great pain and loneliness in our and other people’s lives. Still I believe that the deeper knowing we can experience is a knowing that tells us about a Love, a Love greater than anything else.
Let us just leave it at that today. Know that you are loved by Love, and knowledge of this Love can also become part of your inner knowing!
Feel free to comment!
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No answers? Deconstructing?
I share a part of a poem I wrote some time ago (minor changes and restructuring before publishing). Maybe the poem is about a time of deconstruction? When we experience what some would call a time of deconstruction the hope is that later there will be a time of new construction. Richard Rohr writes about the universal pattern of order, disorder and reorder (https://cac.org/the-universal-pattern-2020-08-09/). We may have to go through times of suffering, deconstruction and disorder. But when this happens we are also given a chance to give up old ways of living or thinking, in order to experience new growth and freedom in our lives.
EMPTY (part one)
I am empty
At least I feel so
This is a dark time
A time when it is very difficult to see
I feel almost nothing
Just a hollow pain inside
I am saddened
By my lack of love for self and others
I feel empty
For how long have I been emptied
Hardly any joy
I can not force it any more
Will I go crazy
Or will I become free
I don’t know now
Only that there is a deep hollow sorrow
I can not necessarily spiritualize what I am going through
But I will remind myself
That Jesus had to drink the cup he feared
On the cross he also felt completely lost
And away from his Father’s love
I do not know
But I want to trust
Rather than giving up on life
I give up walking in my own strength
Without feeling anything
I let go of my answers and ideas
Because now I have none
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New Beginnings
…He was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on Him, and we are healed by His wounds (Isaiah 53:5)
The Bible tells us that Jesus is the wounded healer and by His wounds we are healed. But what does that really mean?
In my Protestant Christian upbringing I grew up with the understanding of Jesus as paying the price for our sins and at times we were close to thinking of this as a transaction: Our sin, the blood of Jesus, we go free. I still accept and receive this as a truth. At the same time I think the typical protestant (evangelical) preaching about this can become very technical and may leave us void of any true and transformational experience.
Now my understanding of the suffering Christ has developed and deepened. Yes, he died for our sins. But at the same time he suffered and died to show us a way through our sin and suffering. This understanding has become an important and necessary step in my faith, and it’s about taking life and Jesus seriously.
Not only is Jesus the wounded healer (check out Henri Nouwen’s great book: The Wounded Healer), but he shows us how we can grow and walk through our own suffering, and even bring healing and forgiveness to this world through our own woundedness. By God’s grace we can all become wounded healers by following his example.
Jesus told his disciples to follow him. I believe that the Creator calls us to be and to become truly human by being honest and truthful when it comes to the experience of sin and suffering. Jesus and the cross invite us to accept suffering and “dying” as a an important way of healing in our lives.
Now I not only believe that Jesus saved us from sin and suffering, but also that he shows us a way to deal with the suffering that’s part of every human’s life. For example in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus in prayer shows us that he wanted to avoid suffering when asking the Father to take the suffering away. But at the same time he accepted the suffering and surrendered to the will of God. The surrender to God happened again at the cross, when Jesus in his final words before dying let go of his spirit.
One important thing Jesus shows us by his example is that we should not run away, deny or avoid suffering and pain that may be necessary in our lives, no matter how painful it is. He shows us a way to live with wounds, truth, acceptance and most importantly a way of surrender to the Creator amist the suffering.
He does not only show us a way in and through suffering, but also that by following this road of surrender we will find new life. Jesus rose from the dead! This means we can go through the valleys in our lives knowing and trusting that there is a way through that leads to new life and new beginnings. Again and again.
I am not so focused on heaven being a particular place after death. I believe the example of Jesus shows us how to live our lives now and how we also will experience breakthroughs and freedom many times throughout our lives. By accepting and growing through the suffering, we can bring healing to others through our example since then our lives point to the greatest example of them all, the example of Jesus.
UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS ARE TAKEN FROM THE HOLMAN CHRISTIAN STANDARD BIBLE®, COPYRIGHT © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 BY HOLMAN BIBLE PUBLISHERS. USED BY PERMISSION. HOLMAN CHRISTIAN STANDARD BIBLE®, HOLMAN CSB®, AND HCSB® ARE FEDERALLY REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF HOLMAN BIBLE PUBLISHERS.
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Falling Upward and Living Water!
I’ve read some very interesting books lately. I will be writing about some of them in posts to come.
One of my favourite books now is the book “Falling Upward – A Spirituality for the two Halves of Life” written by Richard Rohr, a Fransciscan priest. This book has opened my eyes to a better understanding of two different states we can be in as human beings wandering this earth.
Basically, I think a main message in the book is this: In the first half of life you need to build your ego and in a way become secure and grounded in this ego. The second half of life is about going deeper than this ego and starting to figure out more about your truest identity.
Another aspect here, as I understand Rohr, is that the person in the first half of life is more dualistic and black-and-white in his thinking. He may also be more focused on orthodoxy and dogma, which makes his faith often more exclusive. Later in life, by going through some processes that involve contemplation and also suffering, the person becomes less preoccupied with dogma, orthodoxy and also more inclusive when it comes to where truth is found. You really need to read the book to get the full understanding of what I am (/Rohr is) trying to say here. If you happen to be in your thirties or older I really recommend giving the book a chance.
The title, I think, refers to the process you have to go through to spiritually cross over to the second half of life, which involves a kind of falling. Partly this falling may involve quite a bit of suffering and emotional pain. But, in the end you will find that the road downward is actually the way up! As I see it, this can also be understood in light of what Jesus said about dying to your own self, which in my opinion can mean (among other things) that your ego has “to die” or lose importance, in order for a new and true identity (God’s image in us) to grow forth (see f.ex. Luke 9,23 and Gal. 2,20).
I truly believe that by preparing for and going through this tranformational process in life, by the grace of God, we can find a way to connect more fully to the living water that Jesus talked about to the Samarian woman, and finally find a deeper and more (ever-)lasting joy!
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The Contemplative Life 