Dear All of Us,
How wonderful when we have
the clarity and courage
to live out who were really are.
It is wonderfully true as well
for our shared life in community.
God's liveliness is let loose.
The tree of life bursts beautiful.
Of sad course, the obverse is
tragic, deadening.
In our day and way,
like the ancient Israelites,
we must and do chose:
"I have set before you
life and death...
Chose life..."
Deuteronomy 30:19
It's a life choice between our
TRUE SELF
FALSE SELF
individually and collectively.
The choice determines
how we be, what we do,
where we go, how we go.
Thomas Merton helps us
see the difference and choice:
We are at liberty
to be real,
or to be unreal. (1)
The seeds that are planted
in my liberty at every moment,
by God's will, are the seeds
of my own identity, my own reality,
my own happiness, my own sanctity.
To refuse them is
to refuse everything;
it is the refusal of my own
existence and being:
of my identity, my very self. (2)
Every one of us is shadowed by
an illusory person: a false self. (3)
My false and private self
is the one who wants
to exist outside the reach
of God's will and God's love
- outside of reality and outside of life.
And such a person cannot help
but be an illusion. (4)
Ultimately the only way that
I can be myself
is to become identified
with Him in Whom is hidden
the reason and fulfillment
of my existence.
Therefore there is only one problem
on which all my existence,
my peace and my happiness depend:
to discover myself in discovering God.
If I find Him I will find myself
and if I find my true self
I will find Him...
The only One Who can teach me
to find God is God, Himself, Alone. (5)
The only true joy on earth
is to escape from the prison
of our own false self,
and enter by love into union
with the Life Who dwells
and sings within the essence
of every creature
and in the core
of our own souls.
In His love we possess all things
and enjoy fruition of them,
finding Him in them all.
And thus as we go about the world,
everything we meet and everything
we see and hear and touch,
far from defiling purifies us and
plants in us something more of
contemplation and of heaven. (6)
******
New Seeds of Contemplation
2007 New Directions Paperbook
(first published in 1962 as a hardcover)
(1) p32 (2) p33
(3) p34 (4) p 34
(5) p36 (6) p25
******
My true self is me emerging from God.
Me rooted in the Reality and Good of God
and flowering forth.
My false self is the phony me I concoct,
an illusion rooted in the void of the unreal.
Nothing real comes from it.
Through my true self flows God
in actual, personal, practical manner.
Through my false self flows illusions of reality
in actual, personal, practical, painful manner.
True self is living God.
False self is living a lie.
"To be or not to be."
sure is the question.
It all depends on
where we're coming from,
on what we're living out from.
(bad grammar, great truth)
Truely Yours,
John Frank
******
It's so good to have new folks
joining in with us each week.
This past week we were blessed
with our first ever participant
from Guatemala and also with
a large cohort from France.
To one and every
WELCOME
Please share
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
with family, friends, colleagues.
Thanks!
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See you next week.
In the meantime and always
may we be true to whom
we really are - a beautiful
emanation of God.
******
