Remembering Thomas

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consciousness, divine heart, Divine Presence, reason, spiritual journey, the living God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Keating, unconditional forgiveness

In these often busy days of summer I am always grateful to receive words from “one of the great ones” of the spiritual life. Such was my joy yesterday in picking up The Contemplative Outreach News to see the smiling face of Rev. Thomas Keating. Father Thomas left this world on October 25, 2018 at the age of 95 years but his spirit is as alive as ever and his words remain a goad and challenge for those desiring a deeper spiritual life. Two paragraphs from his brief front-page article require my attention and reflection today. In the first there is solace for people who seem to have too many thoughts to engage at once. In a later paragraph I find a possible answer to my distress at the painful side of life.

1. For those progressing on the spiritual journey, even when the consoling aspect of the Divine Presence dissipates because of excessive activity or too much thinking, an interior presence arises that becomes more and more permanent. A shift in consciousness begins to take place. Our rational consciousness is transcended by the awakening of intuitive consciousness. The rational level is not rejected; we simply become free of its limitations. Reason remains available and functional for ordinary daily life, human relationships , and all the needs of embodied activity, but does not overshadow or take away the deeper and abiding awareness of the Divine Presence.
   
   
2. To know the living God we have to share the sorrow of the Divine Heart. God puts up with endless human error, excess, and sometimes malice, in order to get across to us the most important realities of life, of which God’s unconditional forgiveness and love for everyone is the foremost.

Even Now…

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A Sleep of Prisoners, Christopher Fry, divine heart, fasting, holy season, Joel, Lent, love, renewal, repentance, soul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Valentine's Day

As the curtain opens on another season of Lent and we gear up for repentance and renewal, the prophet Joel is way out ahead of us announcing God’s invitation. “Even now,” God says…”Even now,” the poet Christopher Fry writes in the play, A Sleep of Prisoners, “when wrong comes up to face us till we take the longest stride of soul we ever took…”

I am so captivated by those two words that seem to offer so much hope in a dark time. Even now…I begin reflecting on the world situation to find what needs to be redeemed by the poet’s words but I’m quickly thrown back to the personal as Joel continues. “Rend your hearts,” he says, “not your garments.” It’s a necessary course correction that has been needing attention for some time. Winter can be such a lazy season if we are not careful. We can slip into a listless, sluggish round of tasks that lulls us into the mediocre land of February, the “after-the-holidays” let-down that is not our best moment.

Then Joel comes along calling for a fast. “Blow the trumpet in Zion!” he commands. In other words: “Wake up! Get busy! There’s a lot to do before the flowers bloom.” It’s up to us to hear the word of God and act on it. Oh, and coincidentally, today is Valentine’s Day – just another reminder of the kind of God we have who longs for our love even as a greater love is pouring from the divine heart into our own!

So let us be about this holy season – starting now…yes, even now.