Tend Your Life

Take a moment to be still.Calm your thoughts.
Look innerly toward God.
Ask the Holy Spirit to come and be with you, to transform your life, this day and always
Feel the Father holding you gently, encouraging you to open to His Loving presence.
See the face of Christ before you, looking at you with such compassion.
And share with them all, in whichever way you can, whatever burdens you are carrying, right now, however small or large or seemingly impossibly huge.

Stop and give yourself the space to do that.

If you feel that you need forgiveness, ask.
If you feel that you need comfort, it will be given.
If you feel you need help, name it.
If you feel you need love, open and receive it.
If you feel you need healing, claim it.

Know that the awesome Power of the Trinity is with you and will help you.
Each one brings a unique gift to you.
They will hold you in the Very Heart of Love where all mercy flows and love is complete.

They will see your need, even if you cannot articulate it fully and they will respond with power and grace.

They will hear and see you.

The Spirit will rest upon you and we ask that you feel that loving energy in a gentle tender way, today, right now.

Feel your burdens touched by love as you move through this day.
Remember the Heart of Love is real and ever present, waiting to come to your aid.
Only ask then wait.
Somehow love will touch you.
May your day be blessed.
Amen

Father hear me
Son see me
Spirit guide me
Thank you!
Amen

Holy Tears

The wonderful teacher Anthony de Mello once told a story about a grieving mother, who had just lost her son. The master told her gently that he could not do anything about her loss, but he could make her tears “holy”.

That beautiful, tender story reminds me of what we have learned about suffering and struggle, grief and loss, about being broken open in the bleakest places, way beyond imagination.

Here we have immersed ourselves in the Heart of love that flows from the Mighty Trinity. We call this path the Holy Way.

The Holy Way is a path of love, ours and God’s….

The Holy Way has renewed us as we have clung on to that love.

The Holy Way is a path with heart and soul.

It commits us us to keep remembering who we are and who God is, to see beyond the world, with all its torments, disillusions, displacements, hurts, losses.

It commits us to see with inner eyes the flow of Spirit, guiding, empowering, enabling, hoping, holding, uplifting, recreating, banishing all evil in its path, miraculously helping us tread another step forward, even when no steps are seemingly possible.

It is a path of faith.

It is a path of light.

It enables us to cling on to a belief in goodness, in love, in a tenderness and compassion that surely touches the deepest tragedy, the severest pain, the worst assault, the cruelest betrayals and brings healing.

It helps you hold on and move toward love, even when that love is unfelt, unreachable, separated, seemingly lost.

Even in the darkest place does not God tell us that darkness will be to Him as light as day( Psalm 139;12) ?

There is no place that the Light of the World cannot shine, it is in this knowledge that we place our faith as we journey on our Holy Way.

It is in this way that we find blessings in all we experience and endure.

It is in this way, immersing our tears in the love of the Trinity, where all sadness is known, understood and touched by Spirit, that we can keep moving on, refinding ourselves and carry on reaching out in love once more.

Tears ultimately are for healing. When God touches us with His light all is transfigured and transformation is possible and can be used for good.

How many tears must Jesus’ mother have wept for her Son on the Cross, yet what power and love were released that day.

MARY WEEPING AT THE CROSS

may your tears heal the earth
may your tears touch our hearts
may your tears cleanse our soul

may your grief heal our grief
may your grief touch our emptiness
may your grief speak for us

may your love heal our fear
may your love touch our pain
may your love bless our lives

may your hope heal our hearts
may your hope touch our souls
may your hope guide us on
to your Son

(Linda Crowhurst)

Hold On To Truth

Recently  I wrote in my journal about how overwhelmed I felt.

In our situation, one of grinding immense, ongoing, devastating suffering, every extra stress is an intolerable burden.

I feared I may not be able to cope.

Fear is a terrible thing.

It incapacitates you.

Fear can overwhelm and completely invade your life causing misery, it makes everything feel out of balance and exaggerated.

It is at these times, I find, that wrong decisions are made, quickly and not necessarily sensibly.

We are all vulnerable when fear has clutched hold of us , when it twists our view so that all we can feel and see is through fear’s perception.

It is so important to hold on to truth when fear comes knocking. It is important to remember who you are. It is important to remain confident in your self and seek for wisdom in any decisions or actions you need to take.

Cling on to God and hold fast. Banish all fear in Jesus name. For He is powerful, He will return things to right balance and flow. He can help you see clearly and truly and the Spirit can help guide you wisely.

Seek truth at such times. Hold on to what you know to be true. Keep close to love and let that love fill you. Remember God’s promise and find hope in it. For he says ‘ I am with you’. Avoid reacting from fear.

Instead respond in the Power and strength of the love which He brings. Be confident in the Lord, for fear is not of love.

Never be a victim has always been Linda’s motto, I am learning how essential that is. A week later it is amazing how much has been sorted out; the key is taking your power back.

We banish all fear in Jesus Christ’s name.

We live in hope and place our trust in Him.

Amen

The Trinity is Pure Flow

I love the time before dawn.

Every morning, I get up early, do what has to be done, then I make myself a coffee, settle down, with a sigh of comfort, in front of the fire, especially on these cold mornings, to write my journal. And every morning the dog presents me with a ball to throw !

The journal always has to wait.

Who can resist the love and adoration in a dog’s eye, the way its whole body glows with anticipation, the sheer beauty of its presence ?

I was reading about the unconditional way dogs love in Richard Rhor’s masterpiece on the Trinity : “The Divine Dance”, this morning :

“Surely this is why Jesus told us to be like children. There is nothing stopping the pure flow in a child or a dog, and that’s why any of us who have an ounce of eros, humanity, or love in us are defenceless against such unguarded presence.”

The Trinity is pure flow, that is what he is saying.

Wow, I think it is incredible to think of God’s love as akin to the way, Camy the Corgi , looking right into me, engages me with unbound joy.

But this is the bit that has really made an impression on me :

“We see this flow in the attraction of all beauty, in all admiring, in all ecstasy, in all solidarity with any suffering.”

Yes, I can attest to that, for there is a light that shines with radiant brightness in Linda, despite the decades of awful suffering , an overwhelming beauty and presence that sweeps me off my feet , lifts me up, like a dancer, into the flow of what she has long called the Heart of Love !

The Outsider

I have a strong sense of being an outsider, even though we live in a holy place, a place of ancient pilgrimage, even though there is a church opposite, even though we are surrounded by religious communities, these are all completely inaccessible to my wife.

I rarely go to church.

As a consequence, we, who have lived here many years, are not known. I sat in the car, last evening, across the street, seeing how the neighbours genuinely care for each other, little acts of kindness.

We are not ignored, rather life goes on around us, without us. I can’t remember the last time anyone enquired about my wife, so desperately, screamingly ill, so acutely, politically, medically, socially oppressed.

How strange the pretence that a suffering woman in their midst does not exist, here in this staunchly church going, Christian community. There is just a feeling , I experience of being judged, somehow.

The  Epiphany is all about the outsider, who dares to follow a star. Those who knew the truth, were not part of the religious establishment.

Our isolation here, in this holy place, raises questions , in my mind, about what it means to be a Christian. All I know is that just the other night I opened the back door and gasped in wonder at the moon and Venus, shining just above our cottage in extraordinary unity.

How wonderful !

My wife has taught me a great deal about God, who is so deeply present with Linda, that my life cannot help but be suffused with awe and wonder, for which I could cry, I am so grateful.

What treasures our local church is missing out on.

Those Who Suffer

A Hindu mystic once said that those who suffer are God’s messengers.

Those who suffer know why Jesus emphasised faith and trust so much; for they know how to wait, time and again, before journeying ever more deeply into the depths of the Paschal mystery, the mystery of the Cross.

The spiritual life is always about falling, stripping away, desolation, finding, transformation, transfiguration.

Those who suffer are the messengers of God, so close are they to God that any falsehood is exposed, stands out like a sore thumb.

I often wonder if my wife, who has not been to Church for many, many years, could ever sit in silence in Church, listening to a sermon, without speaking out.

I suspect not.

Courage

Every day you have to summon up the courage to persevere ; whether you are a carer or the person who is in intolerable suffering.

As carer you have to summon the courage to keep on facing each day, looking on while the person you love continues to struggle with devastating symptoms and illness.

You have to keep seeing the distress they are in, you have to hold onto your own distress and master it , so that you can keep on helping, keep on understanding, keep on persevering, watching the one you love struggling in tears, feeling their irritation and irritability, knowing you are helpless to take their pain and suffering away.

The person who is suffering has to summon and keep summoning the courage to cope with their indescribable and ongoing intolerable symptoms.

They have to summon up the courage to go within and seek peace , patience, hope,  love, tolerance, kindness. They have to keep aiming to be bigger than the illness again and again.

Especially when your illness and your physical reality has been almost completely diminished in the eyes of most of the world and the medical profession, it is a tremendously difficult task, summoning up the wherewithal to keep looking ahead with hope in your heart, .

Believe me, it takes guts, defiance, perseverance, determination, will power and vast emotional, spiritual and mental strength to keep on coping, to summon up love to help you through each moment.

Love does not fail .

You have all the power of heaven and earth working with you.

We have found you are lifted up on eagles wings , you are strengthened and renewed again and again.