Kirkepiscatoid

Today’s discussion is about “inner peace”. She writes, “When I finally plumb my own depths, take measure of myself, find the world within me that is spirit and light and truth, what is outside of me can never destroy my centered self.”

Reflection questions:

1. Contemplate how and in what way inner peace comes to you. Write about what brings greater peace to you and what takes peace away?

At this point in my journey, it’s fleeting enough that I don’t have a regular “pattern” I just have some places and spaces where, to say in “LOLcat speak”--”inur peas—I haz it.” These places and spaces include my “sacred space in the yard”, and over at Trinity when I am alone and show up early, or let myself in during the week. But there are little glimpses at times in other places, like driving to work and seeing a spectacular sunrise or a rainbow, or looking out my office winter the time of year my tree is literally covered in cedar waxwings eating the little crab apples, using my office window as an “Interstate rest area” on their journey south. These things bring inner peace. But those things come to me when I am not expecting them, I can’t “create”them, I can only be aware of them.

Actually, what “takes it away” is ME. Me when I get bound up in the cares of the world or the petty BS of life or get fearful about something. When I am trying to sit and let it come to me, if I am bound up, I can’t “release”. I pace, I fret, I can’t sit still. I have been a little that way the last few nights in my sacred space. Sit there a while, then have to get up and walk a little. Hell, inner peace could be right there on my lap on those days and I would not see it!

2. Choose one of your life experiences in which you believe the Spirit was teaching you. What did you learn? Has the learning stayed with you? How have you experienced greater inner peace as a result?

Last summer, when I was refinishing the pews, was probably a very formative part of this, if not THE catalyst for it. When I started it, in my mind it started as an “activity”; a “do” thing. By the time I had finished, I realized the “do” part of it was only the vehicle for the “be” part of it. I would never have done the “be” had the “do” not been there. I would have never sat still for the “be”. But as I worked alone in the church, I became very wrapped up in the “shekinah” of the place—the glory of the Lord in holy objects—and it is only in the past 24 hours that I have figured out a big piece of the “why”.

I spent so many years in “solo Christianity”. Part of my journey, it appears, is to inch my way into expanding this to include “community Christianity.” It is so incredibly easy for me to see God in nature, but not in a church. In fact, because of my negative experiences, a church building itself can have a negative effect on me. I have even been known to say, “I can find God anywhere BUT in a church,” in the past. My time alone working in there let me, safely, and alone, feel God’s presence how it works in a church.

I think now that was the first step for me being ok with stepping in a community of worshippers...just to be ok being in the building and feeling something. I also think losing myself in my work was the first step in how to “lose myself in prayerful thought.” So these lessons have not only “stayed with me,” they have been expanded upon. It was my first taste for my NEED to feed a sense of inner peace.

3. Joan Chittister encourages us to “Plumb our own depths, take measure of ourselves, find the world within us that is spirit and light and truth.” Reflect on your own spiritual life. Where are you on this journey? Have you found your “centered self?”

I am not far at all on this journey. If I imagine the center of God’s peace as the center of a vast desert, I am about 100 yards in, over the first dune, and I am still so close to the green edge of the desert I can backtrack my footprints and look back over the hill and see the green edge and go, “Whew!” I am still not ready to walk so far in the wind blows my footprints away and I have to find my way back totally alone in comfort. I have walked in a little, but when the footprints blow away behind me it does make me a little panicked, similar to how I have to sit still and get my bearings in my deer woods when it swallows me up.

I honestly am not sure I have found my “centered self.” How do you know what you have found when you never had it before? I know I have found something new. I know the “newness” of it and the unfamiliarity of it bugs me and attracts me at the same time. It is addictive enough I stick with it. That’s the best I can describe or sense anything about a “centered self.”