Good morning…
Too much to say. There’s just too much to say. How do I center myself down, Lord, to sense your concise, caring message for this unique day?
I could write all about our incredibly meaningful morning at PAWkids yesterday. I could write about yesterday’s moving retirement celebration for a loving pastor I have partnered with at Northside Church for the past thirteen years. I could write about our trip to the Agape Youth and Family Center today with Julie’s Dream volunteers to help children choose and wrap Mother’s Day gifts for their loved ones from the large stash of jewelry Corinne Adams and I collaboratively created. I could write about how this COVID year seems to have quietly deepened me down, inching open my inner eyes to notice God’s Spirit rising up and expanding out, wider and wider.
Too much to say. There’s just too much to say.
Then I open Henri Nouwen’s devotional thoughts for today and I read something that helps me to see through my juicy jumble of “too much to say”.
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DAILY MEDITATION | May 5, 2021 by Henri Nouwen Society
See Through Things
Contemplative life is a human response to the fundamental fact that the central things in life, although spiritually perceptible, remain invisible in large measure and can very easily be overlooked by the inattentive, busy, distracted person that each of us can so readily become. The contemplative looks not so much around things but through them into their center. Through their center he discovers the world of spiritual beauty that is more real, has more density, more mass, more energy, and greater intensity than physical matter. In effect, the beauty of physical matter is a reflection of its inner content.
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Why do these words really reach me this morning?
The central things in life remain invisible in large measure, so it is hard to put words to the abundant life Christ is living through us. I am committed each day to live contemplatively, deeply connected to the God who connects us all. So I find myself looking through “too much to say” into the center that holds us all together. As the unique parts of our lives begin to merge more and more, I see with more clarity that the world of spiritual beauty has more density, more mass, more energy, and more greater intensity than I could ever have imagined. Am I just beginning to see heaven on earth?
Trying to capture in physical words this breathtaking spiritual beauty feels impossible right now. God’s expansion among us lies beyond concise clarity. Too much to say. There’s just too much to say.
This is why I kneel before the Father. Every ethnic group in heaven or on earth is recognized by him. I ask that he will strengthen you in your inner selves from the riches of his glory through the Spirit. I ask that Christ will live in your hearts through faith. As a result of having strong roots in love, I ask that you’ll have the power to grasp love’s width and length, height and depth, together with all believers. I ask that you’ll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will be filled entirely with the fullness of God.
Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us; glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus for all generations, forever and always. Amen (Ephesians 3:14-21, CEB).
As I quiet my typing fingers, I hope that you will take a few quiet moments to see through the pieces of your own life today, to relax into Christ’s firm, forming center. Enjoy experiencing for yourself the dense mass, the energetic intensity of the spiritual beauty of the One who is connecting us all.
…Sue…
