by Tim Dolan
In this time of world history we are being challenged and even traumatized by by personal and public events I find it important to notice the flood of media information and gently turn it off temporarily and find a quiet place and time to contemplate.
What do I do when I’m lost in the forest?
Poetic rendering by David Wagner:
LOST
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost.
Wherever you are is called ‘Here’
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger-
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
Listen, the Forest breathes, it whispers, “I have made this place around you.
If you leave it you may come back again, saying, ‘Here’.
No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a branch does is lost on you, then you are surely lost.
Stand still. The Forest knows where you are.
You must let it find you.
As we approach the darkest time of the year let us sense with our whole being the dawning of the Illuminator himself, the miraculous birth- miraculous because is it was mothered and fathered from the Holy Spirit and not by the will of human parents.
Here is an image to contemplate from the book of 1 Enoch:
His body was white as snow and red as a rose, and he had hair on his head that was white like snow, and his thick curls were beautiful. And when he opened his eyes, the whole house shone like the sun- or even more exceedingly...
As you sit in stillness, listening, breathing an openness into your chest, let the “Forest” find you. Let the Christ be born in you as the sun rising and filling your whole being with light.