Wednesday, September
21, 2016
I’m rereading a book called “Writing
and the Spiritual Life” by Patrice Vecchione which I would recommend to anyone
who is engaged or who wants to be engaged in creative pursuits. One of the
things I like about the book is the way she encourages attitudes of mind and
heart that are integral to the spiritual life. Today I’m going to quote from a
chapter about awareness, and about looking at things not from the mind
but from the heart. Here it is:
When I was a
child my father occasionally spoke to me about light, particularly how the
color of the buildings in certain neighborhoods in lower Manhattan were
affected by late afternoon light. We’d be walking together and he’s stop me
with a hand on my shoulder and say, “Look,” as he stared down the street. There
was no parade going by, no movie star getting out of a limo; it was the light
he was referring to, how it changed what he saw and gave everything a glow and
warmed the colors. He had a tone of voice that was reserved for those
observations alone. I wouldn’t otherwise have noticed that last bit of musty
brightness before the dark comes. . . . He was drawing me to notice more than
the actual light, to find a quality of attention that came from deep inside . .
. (p. 16)
Can you encourage yourself to
see, to listen, to feel from a place within you that is deeper than where you
usually see, listen and feel from? Can you reach down to the place within you
where God has planted his Spirit that cries out, “Abba, Father,” and prays to
the Father when you cannot pray and when you are oblivious to his action? If
you could do that even just for a brief moment, you will have lived a more
enlightened life than what you usually live.
God bless you!
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