Dear All of Us,
LIFE
So many saints and sages
sure got it just right.
One way and many they tell us
that if we want to get life just right,
go where it's experienced just right,
go right to children.
Children haven't yet forgotten
how to live free and full.
They, their way and wisdom,
come highly recommended:
The people brought
children to Jesus,
hoping he might touch them.
The disciples shooed them off.
But Jesus was irate
and let them know it:
"Don't push these children away.
Don't ever get between
them and me.
These children are at the
very center of life
in the kingdom.
Mark this: Unless you accept
God's kingdom in the
simplicity of a child,
you'll never get in."
Then, gathering the children up
in his arms, he laid his hands
of blessing on them."
Mark 10:13-16
The Message
What a referral.
It routes our spiritual life right -
just right.
When life hurts, kids cry.
And if life hurts really bad,
kids cry really hard, loud and long.
Kids show us how to be present to hurt.
They are also wide open to
wide open arms of comfort and care.
Kids show us what to do and
where to go with our hurt.
They model being in
God's Comforting Presence.
When life delights, kids have a ball.
Just get on over to the park
and watch them have to.
They play right into
a rip-roaring good time.
It's glee in high "G".
Kids show us how to play,
show us God's joy
and exuberance
let loose.
It's God's Play Presence.
When we get in the game,
play pry's us free from
our often over wrought
intensity and tightness.
It let's The Spirt flow
fresh and freeing
right through us.
It's presence in the
zippy, zesty Spirit.
If we hang out
with Jesus and his
Kingdom Kids
we get swept up
right into the
THE PRESENCE
OF
GOD
always
everywhere.
Just see a baby and mother
and we see how presence
is with us and God
if we just relax into it.
Relaxing into it is key.
So often and way too much
we strain to make things happen
in our spiritual lives.
I remember obsessing as a young
wannabe saint in the seminary
trying to
Practice the Presence of God.
It was exhausting.
Come to find out it wasn't up to me.
I was already profoundly present to God.
God was already profoundly present to me.
I just had to show up where I was -
be present to
The Presence.
So doing we find that
God is absorbed in us
and enfolds us.
Presence.
Again, children show us the way.
A baby asleep on its mother's lap
is really and securely
in the presence of its mother.
It doesn't think it.
The child experiences it.
They are one.
Presence
A nursing baby and its mother
are intimately one.
Presence
At other times the baby plays
with it's mother.
Presence.
At still other times the baby
is pained and cries.
The mother holds and
comforts the baby.
Presence.
It' a lived union way more than
a conscious caught awareness.
The whole wonder of living in
THE PRESENCE
OF
GOD
is simply beautiful
if we'll let it be what it is.
It's not dependent on
the effort we put into it
and certainly not a matter of
cerebral, conscious earnestness
on our part.
We don't have to stress
until we are walking around
in some sort of transcendent trance
all the time.
It's infinitely wider and deeper
than those limits.
God is
THE PRESENCE
in which we are
- are present -
We're already there.
Best to do as a child does
when at peace and secure
in its mother's enfolding presence.
Be There.
At times it is a conscious awareness.
At times it's an action awareness.
Always though, it is a shared presence,
a shared life in all its moments and modes.
As a growing child shares
the being and doing of life
with its mother,
so us with God.
In him
we live
and move
and have
our being.
Acts 17:28
However we are,
wherever we are,
whatever we do,
we do together,
fundamentally,
existentially
present to each other.
We do life together.
We are life together.
As we get to be big kids
we learn, work, love,
serve, celebrate,
and yes, suffer together.
Over the years we experience
knowing beyond knowing,
the way children do,
the way lovers do.
Living in
THE PRESENCE
is living together all of life.
We drive together,
we cook,
have a headache together,
listen to Palestrina,
we try to patiently suffer
a noisy neighbor,
we work our day job,
we pray and meditate,
we do what we can
for others and for Mother Earth,
all and always in
THE PRESENCE
There are moments
of awed awareness.
There are moments
beyond concept or word.
There are mostly moments
of everyday living love,
practical presence.
We let God take care of all
types and shades of awareness -
sleep to soulful rapture.
Just be there on there's terms
There's where
"There Is"
The Presence.
We do well to remember
Mother Theresa.
For years on end she lived
life together in God,
by faith, not consolation.
No spiritual goose bumps!
When we get strung out,
"discombobulated",
mixed up,
surface stuck,
conflicted or confused
- and we do -
it's time to check out,
even hang out
with God's
Kingdom Kids
Learn how to cling to God,
learn how to let God
hold us tight, safe and close
when the ride is wild
to really wild.
When we are busy,
happy, excited, working,
learning, sharing,
it's time to check out,
even hang out with
God's Kingdom Kids.
They'll show us
how to do it just right.
If we are freely,
fully present to
what is, as is,
with the simplicity of a child
we'll find ourselves in
The Presence
of
God
There are many
modes and practices
that help us "simple down"
to that of a child.
We need to be sure, though,
we don't get compulsive about it,
caught up in technique.
If we employ them to control
our awareness of
God's Presence
we are playing God
and we just aren't there.
We're trying to capture God
rather than to simply
be caught up in God.
If we employ one or two of those
many modes and practices
to get our controlling selves
out of the way, we're on our way
to where we are - in
The Presence of God.
Again and always, children are
THERE
and show us how to be so.
A baby is present to being held,
to being nursed, to being comforted.
Kids on the playground are
"all in" to what is going on right
THERE
"These children are at the
very center of life
in the kingdom"
"Unless you accept
God's Kingdom in the
simplicity of a child
you'll never get in."
So good to simply share together
THE PRESENCE
John Frank
PS
I'm eighty one.
When I grow up
I want to be a kid
and spend all my time
kidding around with God.
******
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com.
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******
Have a great week.
******
The seen shows the unseen.
See a baby and mother
and we see God and us
living in
THE PRESENCE
of each other.
A baby asleep
in its mother's arms,
playing with its mother,
crying with gas pains
as its mother's sooths it
is living in her presence
and she in his presence.
is totally in her presence.
It's not cerebral, rational awareness,
but it is beautifully real
presence.
At other times the baby
is awake and plays
with the mother.
There is awareness in
this enlivening presence.
At still other times the baby,
pained by gas and crying,
is in the mother's caring presence.
as she sooths him.
