“With full intensity we seek, ere thicket passes, a fresh sense of order in our living; a direction, a strong sure purpose that will structure our confusion and bring meaning in our chaos.”
Isaiah 6:8
“I heard the voice of the Lord saying,”Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
Galatians 5:22-25
“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.”
Reflection:
“With full intensity we seek.” To sit quietly is not laziness. The “deep within” is not withdrawal from responsibility. Thirst for stillness and rest is not apathy.
No, “with full intensity we seek.” Alive and focused. Brave enough for stillness we finally have a chance. Finally have a chance to hear the voice of the Lord saying “Who shall I send?” And with full intensity we might have passion inside to respond, “Here I am. Send me.”
We find a direction, a sense of purpose. And we likely long for that purpose to be specific. For a sign to come down from the heavens that says, “Do THIS THING for me.”
But “a fresh sense of order” is not a plan. To” bring meaning to our chaos” is not to tame it, but to learn to live with its reality. To find that chaos is not the enemy, lack of meaning is. Spiritual writer Richard Rohr reminds us that the real suffering of our main is lack of meaning. Once we find and create meaning, our suffering becomes manageable, tolerable, almost full of direction.
That “direction” and “purpose” though, is only found when we realize that it doesn’t arrive in the form of the grand sign from the heavens, but in the whisper of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness.” Has this ever happened to you? Has suffering ever softened you? I know when illness has struck in my own life, I certainly wail and bemoan the unknown and the pain. But eventually, if I can ask God to meet me there, something happens and the confusion and chaos open my heart to others’ who are also hurting in similar and different ways. I find myself more patient with what others might be facing, more kind when confronted with people I call annoying, more generous with my judgments and my resources.
The structure and meaning we seek might not be detailed answers but signposts to our deeper selves where love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, and faithfulness can flourish.
This is why retreats and other silent practices are part of most spiritual traditions. Not because God speaks to us more on retreats than in our daily lives, but because on retreat, in the stillness, we are more available to hear. To channel our intensity into our purpose.
To distill the chaos into love.
To dance with confusion into joy
To face lack of order with patience
To soften into kindness
To open into generosity
To focus our lives into faithfulness
- Reflection by Melissa Carnell
Melissa lives in New Orleans and is a Hospital Chaplain.
The Way of Beauty:
Imagine a fruit display, what does each of the fruits of the spirit represent? Using a medium of art of your choosing such as writing, drawing, painting, sculpture, music, dance, let beauty flow into the words: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, and faithfulness. This art is a representation of a spiritual platter of abundance.
The Contemplative Mystical Way:
Contemplate the full and powerful intensity in the ministry and wisdom of Howard Thurman, the spiritual teacher and writer of this poem which is writing our path to centering ourselves in God. Think about his witness, his quiet and thunderous power of his speech, and realize we worship the same God. We are called by the same God. What intensity have you noticed in your life? What dissonance have you leapt into or shied away from when you realized injustice and sin were around you? How is God calling us, right now, with powerful intensity? Pray and contemplate how we can have the sensitivity to notice and the courage to speak and the tenacity to continue to love with ferocious grace. Write about this.
The Way of Practical Action:
Follow this link to draw a Labyrinth:
Create a handheld labyrinth today. You will be able to use this today, but there will be another chance to use it later in the retreat. Move at your own pace to create the labyrinth, it is art and contemplation just to make it. You can decorate around the edges with your own artwork, if you like. If you have materials available, you can add texture with string and tissue paper as shown in the photos below. Consider your journey, your direction. A labyrinth isn’t a maze, it is a journey. You are not lost, you a moving.
Prayer:
Dear Creator,
“Keep alive in me the forward look, the high hope,
The onward surge
Let me not be frozen
Either by the past or the present.
Grant me, O patient Father, Thy sense of the future
Without which all life would sicken and die.”
Help us to live as Blessed community, to be the very hands and feet of Christ, to give hope and consolation and to uphold dignity, to listen wholeheartedly, to atone for the harms we have committed and the good we have failed to do, and to speak with conviction and faithfulness.
Amen.
(Quote is of the Rev. Howard Thurman)
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