Can you believe it’s Friday again? Already? Me, neither. But that’s what the calendar is telling me….almost. Still 30 minutes to go here on the west side of the land, but I’m ready to try this five minute things anyhow!
Joining with Lisa-Jo once again over at The Gypsy Mama for her weekly invitation to ‘just write.’
“I don’t think that it is always necessary to talk about the deepest and most private dimension of who we are, but I think we are called to talk to each other out of it, and just as importantly to listen to each other out of it, to live out of our depths as well as our shallows. We are all of us adolescents, painfully growing and groping our way toward something like true adulthood, and maybe the greatest value we have both to teach and to learn as we go is the capacity to be amazed…which is a power to heal us and bless us and in the end maybe even to transform us into truly human beings at last.”
Source: The Clown in the Belfry, by Frederick Buechner
This week’s prompt: REAL
GO:
This quote really jumped up and bit me tonight as I was scurrying through the long list of unread emails in my inbox. This was the devotional thought from The Church of the Savior in Washington D.C. for today and it invites serious thinking about some of the very things I’ve been pondering these last few days.
So to find this quote – and to see Lisa-Jo’s prompt – made me wonder: What am I supposed to be seeing/learning from all this synchronicity?
Here are a few (very few) initial responses to that inner query:
That authenticity and vulnerability are beautiful things, that they need to be honored and held lightly, that they need to be protected and valued.
That we don’t need to spill every intimate detail of our lives into each and every conversation we ever have, but we do need to be sensitive to the movement of the Spirit within for those times when appropriate and helpful sharing could facilitate healing and health in ourselves or others.
That there is always, always something going on around or within us that could, if we stopped long enough to notice it, cause us to drop that jaw in amazement, gratitude and joy.
That giving the gift of ‘real’ is a matter of both discretion and trust – ultimately, trust in God’s grace to bring healing, and trust in the other person to hold confidence and to offer listening that goes deep.
STOP
This just may be the strangest response to a Lisa-Jo prompt I’ve ever written! (About one extra minute – and links were added after the time limit.)
Diana,
This is beautiful. Don’t you love it when the unfolding comes like that….this bit, then this, and now this and all of a sudden, there’s some fresh clarity.
Thanks for sharing.
A few people have needled me for not sharing everything, but I have learned the value of being judicious. Frankly, if I were to spill all my beans, everyone would run screaming from the room. But when the Holy Spirit prompts it, well, then something miraculous happens.
Wisdom! Thanks for listening when things came out. I loved your post on listening at the ocean, and really loved what your spiritual director said, the funny story of your email being delayed (unfortunately?) until exactly the right time.
Wisdom to know who to trust and how much to share and the vulnerability, yes it can be raw and I often go there too quickly. But a blessing can cover the raw as I experienced deeply once at Fuller.
I love this–your strangest response :). I especially love that you pause and ask the Spirit what these two words are speaking to you. And this: the capacity to be amazed…wow. Would you believe I have never read any Buechner? He’s on my list forever but you know how lists go. Though every quote from him I’ve ever read resonates deep in my spirit. Maybe that is telling me something.
Thank you for your kind words and prayers this week. Feeling so, so shattered. Oh, God dwells in these places though and the breath of the Divine is sweet against my skin. This broken world can be so hard.
That being real is a gift. I like that thought.
And I don’t think this is strange at all. 🙂
One of the things I find strange is how I’ve meandered through so many blogs this year, and somehow keep finding myself in the same place with several of the same people. A “God thing”, I would think, yes?
I’ve not been one to open up very far… at least, not often. My family say I’m a private person, much as my mother was. But when I share occasional personal bits with those to whom I have been led, there is always rich blessing.
I guess it just reinforces the truth that God is in control.