Saturday, February 2, 2013

Journey to Resurrection


JOURNEY OF MY LIFE

JOURNEY TO GOD

 

Utter silence – blinding winter sun

gentle breezes – hardly noticeable

surprising warmth for January

silent mystery!

In the distance – pounding sea – waves crashing in – wild

repeating noise – one right after the other.

Are these sounds of my life?  pounding?

 wildness?  no control?

Mystery of the pounding of the sea is the mystery of my life.

So many different currents – some dangerous –

others easy to swim in.

Utter silence of the day is utter silence of God –

the Beloved.

Crashing ocean cannot take away the silence of the Divine.

Stillness permeates all – it frames the noise - pounding sea –

frames the currents of my life.

How does it do it?  mystery?

Let me not ask too many questions!

Better – let me feel the Presence in the silence –

Presence of the Beloved.

Like the mysterious pounding of the sea,

my life pounds in mystery -

 

sometimes painful – other times with smiles.

Let the mystery be dark - dim –

Presence of my Beloved is there.

He will not leave me alone.

God hovers over all!

 

Robert Trabold

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JOURNEY TO RESURRECTION

Robert Trabold

 

            In our walking through life and in the years we have on earth, we do realize that our human existence is not our real home.  It is a home that has a beginning, middle and an end.  At times, we do not want to realize this nor face it. It is hard to face because we have to let go of our whole life on earth and move on to another existence. So this engenders fear within us and this prospect is full of mystery.  What is on the other side of our human journey? So we see that our physical life is delicate and temporary but if we are honest with ourselves, the fragility of this physical life is a symbol of also the fragility of our spiritual life. We are burdened with our humanity with its pride, selfishness and violence on the individual and social level. If we look at ourselves in the mirror and are honest, we must admit that it is a struggle in life to try to live in a positive way and not be dominated by our selfishness and pride that never goes away.  This is the human condition. It is incumbent upon ourselves to constantly keep in mind that we have to establish a real relationship with God who is the eternal spring in our life and constantly gives us the inspiration and strength to live in the way Jesus wants for us.  Scripture tells us that we are fragile vessels on earth and we have to become filled with the presence of the divine to overcome this fragility and live in a new life.

 

            Meditation is a powerful tool to help us put into focus this human condition we are in and to see how we can go beyond it. In our life, it is a challenge to come to grips with our humanity and selfishness and reach out to a loving relationship with God which offers us a way to go beyond our own fragility to a resurrection. Through the Christian gospel, we are now invited to this resurrection and rebirth, we do not have to wait until another day. Jesus invites us to die to our pride, self-importance and limitations. Our life does not have to be dominated by the weaknesses of our human existence. There is a way out. An example is Jesus’ life.  He died on the cross and also had his resurrection. Death did not have the final word and it is also a symbol of what is offered to us. Through the example of his life, Jesus invites us to go through our weaknesses and death and offers us a new life of communion and fraternity with God and other human beings in earth and in eternity. We cross over our own fear of our humanity and death to rise to a new life – an Easter Sunday for ourselves.

 

            When we sit down to meditate, Jesus is giving us an invitation to go beyond our life of human weakness, pride and death and rise to a new life in the mystery of God.  In this journey into the divine, we realize that the divine is love and this love casts out fear from our life. In this journey in the human condition and on earth, ‘Someone’ loves us, watches over us and calls to a loving relationship. This call to love and union with Jesus casts out fear from us – we are no longer dominated by our weaknesses and our fear of the death of our body. It puts everything in perspective – our life and death are absorbed in our experience of God and in the confidence of the Lord’s love for us. In our meditation and repetition of the mantra, we are focusing on the divine’s presence within us and in our hearts. The daily fidelity to meditation and saying of the mantra helps us better understand own  life, death and resurrection and aids us focus on the important goal,  that is, to put our life totally in the Lord and the new way he offers us to see ourselves in the world and our earthly existence.

 

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