Matthew under the arm 23
A young woman joined us today. She was carrying next to nothing on her back. She seemed to be intent on little else but getting to end of the Pilgrimage. This disturbed me. These are still early moments on the pigrimage. The Gospel of Matthew under my arm, I have hardly begun and I have no intention of completing this pilgrimage (if ever I do!) until the last verses of Matthew I have read and prayed with...and walked with. So there! I asked her why she was so intent. Columba heard my question and gently squeezed my arm and shook his head as if to say: 'You are intruding. Just watch, listen to her even in her silence and you will be invited into her journey and into God's.' How did he know? I then realised that my own spiritual journey, this pilgrimage, so easily might become not only a matter of self-fulfilment for me, but I want this young woman, and Columba, for that matter, to do the same... No wonder my attention is so little on God....
Matthew 6:22-24….
Matthew’s Gospel assumes at every corner that our attention is being re-focused: centred on God. The demand in the Gospel to be obedient to that focus is uncompromising. Being that attentive to God may seem unrealistic, let alone practical. In fact, it’s the other way round. By working at being attentive to God in prayer, our work and living becomes profoundly practical. Our eyes are slaves of our desires and darkness prevails in our inner lives. To look at God brings freedom of heart and freedom of action, not separately from the darkness but through it.
Open the eyes of my heart that I may see You; my mind that I may perceive You; my hands that I may serve You.
There is a powerful way of practicing being attentive to God and that is allowing my attention to be drawn away from that which is not God. So I look at the room I am in; become aware of my body, thoughts, emotions and feelings, imaginings... and become aware that they are important but they are not God. It is coming to know God by the way of ‘unknowing’. Once you have passed through all these aspects of your life, then allow the sentence (or a small part of it) above to hold your attention.
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
Matthew 6:22-24….
Matthew’s Gospel assumes at every corner that our attention is being re-focused: centred on God. The demand in the Gospel to be obedient to that focus is uncompromising. Being that attentive to God may seem unrealistic, let alone practical. In fact, it’s the other way round. By working at being attentive to God in prayer, our work and living becomes profoundly practical. Our eyes are slaves of our desires and darkness prevails in our inner lives. To look at God brings freedom of heart and freedom of action, not separately from the darkness but through it.
Open the eyes of my heart that I may see You; my mind that I may perceive You; my hands that I may serve You.
There is a powerful way of practicing being attentive to God and that is allowing my attention to be drawn away from that which is not God. So I look at the room I am in; become aware of my body, thoughts, emotions and feelings, imaginings... and become aware that they are important but they are not God. It is coming to know God by the way of ‘unknowing’. Once you have passed through all these aspects of your life, then allow the sentence (or a small part of it) above to hold your attention.
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
posted by Martin at 12:02 pm
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