A meditation on the vocation of a Secular Carmelite
St Aidan’s Prayer
Leave me alone with God as much as may be,
as the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore.
Make me an island, set apart, alone with you, God, holy to you.
Then with the turning of the tide,
prepare me to carry your presence to the busy world beyond,
the world that rushes in on me,
til the waters come again and fold me back to you.
Questioning…looking at the places in our souls that we assign to God in childlike trust and the ones we may not so freely assign.
I have found that I am seeing faith act as a coping mechanism in peoples lives.
I believe if we were to sit down and look at the difficulties in our lives, we will find a way that we assign things to God in a form of a coping mechanism.
for example…the parent whose children have gone beyond reach of sheltering arms can no longer be any influence beyond whatever remains of 18 years of teaching….so they assign this child’s care to God…OK, God loves this child more that even I do, I will trust this child to God. take this load off my shoulders so I can deal with the rest of life…they are beyond my control.
or..
a person lives with ill health during their life they have seen the hand of God heal some and not others..not by any doing of either..so ..the person builds a trust is God…leave my health in His hands, because it is beyond my control.
or…
a person has grown up with abuse of various forms, putting each one behind as it is escaped from, feeling strong for the ability to keep going and not emotionally shatter…but the weight of bearing all these things creeps up…and the person realizes they are not strong…and there are times of great fear. Then they realize God’s part…the strength came from God…God works in our lives to lead us …if there is one source, (all is either from God or allowed by God) then all pain …physical or emotional…has a purpose.
OK…it was all in God’s plan…I will give this to God…The past is beyond my control.
There are many ways we turn our lives over to God for a coping mechanism…when “all is beyond our control”
In looking at the virtue of patience…but a key element of patience is trust…perhaps it has to come first..
When trust becomes a virtue is when it goes beyond the coping mechanism. This means trusting God with the parts of our lives that we still feel “in control of”. Trusting Him as a last resort is helpful to our psyche but what if we could hand Him every day before it starts, give Him the jobs before they begin, talk to Him through the day, What if we have total trust as a child who doesn’t even realize where the road goes, only that it walks hand in hand with the father, The child that has no idea how long the journey will be, only that in the end, they will be home again. Is this where the the virtue lies?
Perhaps you can add some pieces to these virtues…though they are acquired by Grace alone. Doesn’t there have to be a seeking of our own??
Is a striving for Holiness, contradictory to a letting go of trust?
It seems the further I seek the more questions I have.
Scripture gives us many images of God, to put the unfathomable into the fathomable…
Abba…father
Creator….
The Gospel of John is full …
I Am the Good Shepherd….
I Am the Light of the world….
I Am the Bread of Life….
St Teresa said to “remember who we are and who God is.”
Through each of the images of God lies a reflection of us.
through God as Creator…we are the created…
through the Good Shepherd…we are the sheep
through the Light of the world…we are the light bearers
through the Bread of life…we are the Body of Christ
through the Bridegroom…we are the Bride…the Beloved, the reason for His presence in the world
through Abba…we are the child
Those who have walked with a child know, they always seem to carry “extra things” then down the road the burden is too much.
When we go on a hike as a family…we share the load in proportion to abilities. The child who picks up “the pretty rock” may tire and not be able to carry on…they wanted to do the extra but find it is only necessary to carry their own.
So we want sometimes to have the strength of Martyrs…we want to go into battle as Joan of Arc…we want to love as St John…we want to Do for God…but as the burdens become too heavy we lay them down and feel a failure…but this is not necessary. The Father has not asked this, or the burden would be light.
We each are an individual thread in God’s tapestry…woven together to grow with each other. We do not need to choose our own crosses, God has chosen them for us, the ones we can bear. This may place us as teacher…as parent …as religious…maybe just dealing with our own sufferings is our cross…bottom line, we are all children of God.
This is the amazing gift that St Therese gives us…the reminder that we can simply be a child of God…we can do our best…right where we are…God will give us “courage in proportion to our suffering”.
We can walk hand in hand with our Father…knowing He is there to hold us when we need. And this is how it is all designed.
Then it is ok for me to be little…it is ok for me to feel weak…, because this is who I am.
Like Elijah’s cave, a place for sharing the whispers of that still, small voice
A meditation on the vocation of a Secular Carmelite
St Aidan’s Prayer
Leave me alone with God as much as may be,
as the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore.
Make me an island, set apart, alone with you, God, holy to you.
Then with the turning of the tide,
prepare me to carry your presence to the busy world beyond,
the world that rushes in on me,
til the waters come again and fold me back to you.
This is very nice Cheryl. I have never seen it before.
Questioning…looking at the places in our souls that we assign to God in childlike trust and the ones we may not so freely assign.
I have found that I am seeing faith act as a coping mechanism in peoples lives.
I believe if we were to sit down and look at the difficulties in our lives, we will find a way that we assign things to God in a form of a coping mechanism.
for example…the parent whose children have gone beyond reach of sheltering arms can no longer be any influence beyond whatever remains of 18 years of teaching….so they assign this child’s care to God…OK, God loves this child more that even I do, I will trust this child to God. take this load off my shoulders so I can deal with the rest of life…they are beyond my control.
or..
a person lives with ill health during their life they have seen the hand of God heal some and not others..not by any doing of either..so ..the person builds a trust is God…leave my health in His hands, because it is beyond my control.
or…
a person has grown up with abuse of various forms, putting each one behind as it is escaped from, feeling strong for the ability to keep going and not emotionally shatter…but the weight of bearing all these things creeps up…and the person realizes they are not strong…and there are times of great fear. Then they realize God’s part…the strength came from God…God works in our lives to lead us …if there is one source, (all is either from God or allowed by God) then all pain …physical or emotional…has a purpose.
OK…it was all in God’s plan…I will give this to God…The past is beyond my control.
There are many ways we turn our lives over to God for a coping mechanism…when “all is beyond our control”
In looking at the virtue of patience…but a key element of patience is trust…perhaps it has to come first..
When trust becomes a virtue is when it goes beyond the coping mechanism. This means trusting God with the parts of our lives that we still feel “in control of”. Trusting Him as a last resort is helpful to our psyche but what if we could hand Him every day before it starts, give Him the jobs before they begin, talk to Him through the day, What if we have total trust as a child who doesn’t even realize where the road goes, only that it walks hand in hand with the father, The child that has no idea how long the journey will be, only that in the end, they will be home again. Is this where the the virtue lies?
Perhaps you can add some pieces to these virtues…though they are acquired by Grace alone. Doesn’t there have to be a seeking of our own??
Is a striving for Holiness, contradictory to a letting go of trust?
It seems the further I seek the more questions I have.
Scripture gives us many images of God, to put the unfathomable into the fathomable…
Abba…father
Creator….
The Gospel of John is full …
I Am the Good Shepherd….
I Am the Light of the world….
I Am the Bread of Life….
St Teresa said to “remember who we are and who God is.”
Through each of the images of God lies a reflection of us.
through God as Creator…we are the created…
through the Good Shepherd…we are the sheep
through the Light of the world…we are the light bearers
through the Bread of life…we are the Body of Christ
through the Bridegroom…we are the Bride…the Beloved, the reason for His presence in the world
through Abba…we are the child
Those who have walked with a child know, they always seem to carry “extra things” then down the road the burden is too much.
When we go on a hike as a family…we share the load in proportion to abilities. The child who picks up “the pretty rock” may tire and not be able to carry on…they wanted to do the extra but find it is only necessary to carry their own.
So we want sometimes to have the strength of Martyrs…we want to go into battle as Joan of Arc…we want to love as St John…we want to Do for God…but as the burdens become too heavy we lay them down and feel a failure…but this is not necessary. The Father has not asked this, or the burden would be light.
We each are an individual thread in God’s tapestry…woven together to grow with each other. We do not need to choose our own crosses, God has chosen them for us, the ones we can bear. This may place us as teacher…as parent …as religious…maybe just dealing with our own sufferings is our cross…bottom line, we are all children of God.
This is the amazing gift that St Therese gives us…the reminder that we can simply be a child of God…we can do our best…right where we are…God will give us “courage in proportion to our suffering”.
We can walk hand in hand with our Father…knowing He is there to hold us when we need. And this is how it is all designed.
Then it is ok for me to be little…it is ok for me to feel weak…, because this is who I am.