This piece seems to have touched a few hearts. I want to thank those of you who took the time to write me about it.
Begin the year with a true confession
This piece seems to have touched a few hearts. I want to thank those of you who took the time to write me about it.
Thank you so much for this article. I always read your writing in the Edmonton Journal but this particular piece spoke to my “heart”.
Thank you Georgina.
You told me once “Don’t look to me for clarity,” and while I understand some of your hesitance, our sharing of experience does provide some lessening of the fog on this journey in which we see through a glass darkly. This confession of sorts does help me understand that I am not alone in the wrestling, and with that clear realization, I become more comfortable with the discontent that drives me to keep commiserating and searching and praying for clarity. Clear as mud? 🙂
Ah pilgrim, your intuition is felicitous…in mindfulness, we do find a form of clarity, not the kind we had wanted or expected, but the kind that you speak of, the clarity of unknowing that is found (while becoming comfortable) in the cloud, in the mud. The walk goes on. Thank you for writing Joyce.
Psychologists of religion speak of the difference between spiritual seeking and spiritual dwelling. Dwellers are those who find a home in the certainties of their group. Seekers are those who for some reason or other are on a path to somewhere else. I’ve not accepted that distinction for myself. Seeking and dwelling go together, as I think you have so elegantly written – although, your comments about certainty suggest a preference for seeking and a suspicion of dwelling. But, such seeking finds itself at home in some dwelling – perhaps a bush near Muenster, SK?
For myself, I continue to be confronted and challenged and attracted by the crucified Christ, a la Paul i 1 Corinthians 1,2. Contrary to seeing competing theories of the atonement, I see in this both the way to life, and a call to a way of life. Dwelling and seeking. I keep reminding myself that while I can constantly repair to that Image, it/He calls me forward….
Thank you Sam, Dwellers must be seekers and seekers dwellers. If not, life is artificial. We (I) was warned away from seeking outside of limits and perhaps that is why my preference for the search or the journey is now more prominant. I know well enough that soul-health and life itself is impossible without some (faith’s) certainty, but the art and the life is in the holding. In a way, the kenosis, the “crucifying” we are called to is about releasing our grip on dogma so as to allow dogma its place.