… watching for the brushstrokes of God
“As with most great communicators, God knows that the point of silence and the pause between sentences is not to give the audience the chance to fill the silence with empty babbling but to help create more depth to the conversation.” ~ Renite J. Weems
How do you reach depth?
“ A lot of unimportant inner litter and bits and pieces have to be swept out first….So let this be the aim…to turn one’s innermost being into a vast empty plain, with none of that treacherous undergrowth to impede the view. So that something of “God” can enter you, and something of “Love”, too…the love you can apply to small, everyday things.” ~ Etty Hillesum
How do you create inner empty plains?
“Stillness is not about focusing on nothingness; it’s about creating a clearing. It’s opening up a emotionally clutter-free space and allowing ourselves to feel and think and dream and question.” ~ Brene Brown
How do you create clearings?
Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote “It is only framed in space that beauty blooms.” I wonder how space allows for ordinary miracles that ground us and strengthen our hearts so we can keep them open in difficult times, turning and returning to the center when too many demands and chaos pull us like centrifugal forces off center.
What space nourishes grounding?
“Walking in a relaxed manner” is a phrase from Joyce Rupp’s book on walking the Camino de Santiago. What does it mean to walk in a relaxed manner? To live our days in a relaxed manner in the midst of the strain of expectations, desires, aspirations, upheavals, triggers, things to do and places to go.
How do you set your feet into a spacious place (Psalm 31:8)?
Puddles, ponds, lakes, rivers, ocean – each unique in its shape and rhythm…ebb and flow, rapid or meandering, clear or rippling, still and reflective or with an invitation to splash.
What water are you drawn to?
With the Eyes of the Heart 