"Freedom From Fear Comes Through Love"

Freedom From Fear Comes Through Love

This is a line from Psalm 3, Nan Merrill – Psalms for Praying. Fear is an ingredient that was liberally added to my understanding of God as I grew up. Fear is an ingredient that power mongers wield to control those who have “less than”, and fanatics hold it as their creed over those who see through different eyes. Religious abuse is based on fear.

Fear and freedom cannot co-habitate within me – they are absolute rivals for my heart and soul and the battle inside gets fierce when freedom is threatened. Yet fear is my response when threatened, or silenced, or when the bruise of the past is touched – instinctively I retreat to fear! Why? Why is my response not from freedom when I am threatened? I live so far away from those places of fear now. The wind of the Spirit has never spoken fear to me – only the tenderness of freedom and hope.

The practice of moving into freedom doesn’t come as quickly as I want it to. But “practice” is the only way I know that will move me from old responses to the true one of Trust in Love, in the Beloved, where the fear is silenced and Truth is spoken to my heart and soul.

Over the past few weeks I have seen the effects of legalistic/cult like behaviour in the circle of those I love, the circle I have had to walk away from, yet they cannot see it from within. As I hear of their pain my own fears rise for I know they have been unable to ever truly hear my own pain. These wounds of the soul are deeper than we realize and perhaps the ‘bruise’ left behind will always remain. Religious/spiritual abuse may also take a lifetime to heal.

As I retreated to my place of solitude and silence, even away from my beloved fiance, I sat with the fears and heard them for what they are – bruises of the past that cannot sit with the freedom my heart lives for now. Picking up my new book, Psalms for Praying, I found this Psalm 3 to speak to me, to let the wind of the Spirit bathe me again in freedom, hope and truth:

O Beloved, how numerous are my fears!
They rise up within me whispering
There is no help for you in Love.

Yet You, O my Beloved, radiate around me,
My glory,
Lifting my head high.
I cry aloud to You,
And You answer within my heart.

I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, for my Beloved
Holds me with strength and tenderness.
I shall withstand all my fears as they arise within me.

Rise up, Love!

Set me free, my Beloved!
For with You in my heart
My fears will be transformed into Love.

Freedom from fear comes through Love;
May the Beloved’s blessing reign within all hearts!

From Psalm 4 – Nan Merrill, Praying the Psalms

You know that the Beloved dwells with those
Who are filled with love;
And hears when our hearts cry out.
Though you may feel angry,
Do not give in to fear;

Commune with the Heart of your heart
As you rest,
And be in silence.
Make peace with your fears
And trust in Love.

I hold this in my heart and let it be infused into my being to help me build new responses, in freedom.

Contemplative Thought for the Day

Thought to Remember

"Contemplation can never be the object of calculated ambition. It is not something we plan to obtain with our practical reason, but is the living water of the spirit that we thirst for, like a hunted deer thirsting after a river in the wilderness."

The Merton Institute for Contemplative Living

Summertime Meanderings in My Mind

One morning this week I stood at the kitchen sink, feeling the gentle morning breeze, inhaling the scent of a warm summer day beginning, hearing the faint sound of early traffic , and I realized summer had at last arrived here on the BC Coast! It has been slow in arriving - up until the end of June we have had rain rain rain and unusually cool weather. As the warm air, the morning scent, and the music of summer drifted through the window, my mind returned to languid summer days that have held the full meaning of this season that invites us to revel in the season full of light and warmth. Always, always my mind returns to my year in Italia and the hot days of May when I arrived. There was the early morning train ride from Castellammare to Napoli for Italian lessons, and then home in the midday heat. The 10 days in old Montreal last year were a glorious gift of solitude and time to drink in life surrounded by another language. At the end of the time when my friend Angie joined me there was much heart story to share with each other.

Perhaps it is "heart story" that I remember as my senses step into summer. This season that calls us to dress more lightly where the wardrobe waits with the fabrics that brush against your skin so lightly, or that allow your bare arms and legs to be bathed in the sunlight or moonlight and walking barefoot lets you experience the heat and the freedom of summer. Funny, as I write that I realize how much each season reveals facets of love and perhaps summer is the one of lingering, and in the lingering the opening of the windows of the heart and mind to experience the freshness it holds. My life theme of "barefoot freedom" feels so delicious in the long warm days of summer.

My mental meanderings ventured down another road as I read the bittersweet story of letting a precious pet go, over here at Living On Both Ends. For 4 of the 6 years I have lived out here on the West Coast I have had Sebastian the cat as a companion in my cosy apartment. He has been a great little companion greeting me at the door when I return home, seeking out my lap when I sit to read or watch a movie, licking the tears off my face as their warm salty liquid released the pain as I walked through the wrestling of another part of the inner healing path. Come September Sebastian will need to adjust to a new home, joining 2 other resident female cats that belong to my beloved. David and I will have a blended family - of cats!! In the meantime Sebastian spends more time than usual alone due to my spending more time with David than alone at my own home. I feel guilty that my little (well he is rather a large cat) feline friend is a bit neglected right now.

Having been single for a long time I find myself reticent to share my joy at this surprise of love in my life, with friends who would also like this kind of gift in their lives. I realize how much easier it is to share sorrow than to share joy in some respects. The enthusiasm of and love a friend as I shared the story of David and I was delightful and yet I know that she too would love to have such a story in her own life. I realize how closed my heart has been to others joy in their story when I wished the story was my own. My heart is not always as generous and as gracious as it should be as an "image bearer" of the Almighty. I have much to learn yet.

I have pondered why I write less these days. While life is busy and I have much less time in solitude, it also seems that I am "living" my story in a way that is more participatory at present than ever before. The writing will come again I am sure. Like summer, full of warmth, colour and delicious breezes, this particular segment of my life fabric holds change, wonder and the realizing that it isn't leaving an old life, but embracing the new into my present, that gives the shimmer and the texture to the present.