My main dilemma up here on Coyote Mountain outside Taos, NM, is whether to spend the blessed silence and solitude working, or to spend every minute looking at the sky, which literally changes from minute to minute.
I am off Saturday to Albuquerque from my week-long retreat on St. Thérèse of Lisieux with Bro. Joseph F. Schmidt.
(Re)-reading The Executioner’s Song and watching Kurosawa‘s Ikiru (To Live).
Continuing to savor Iain Matthews’ The Impact of God: Soundings from St. John of the Cross.
The point is that love takes the person on a journey deeper into him. Deeper, but always into him. Canticle brings waves of understanding, unveiling each time what was there from the beginning. It is as if one heard a drama on the radio about children being saved from drowning; then it turns out to be a news item, not a drama; then one discovers the children are one’s own children.
So, the bride’s search starts off with a meditation on the mysteries of Jesus–meaning Jesus born, tempted, teaching, healing, praying sweating, dying, rising. She begins with this. As she goes further, she comes…to the mysteries of Jesus; surpassing that she reaches…the mysteries of Jesus; until finally, in the utter newness of heaven, she will be overwhelmed by the mysteries of Jesus…
And so up to the caverns,
set deep into the rock
–almost out of sight–
we’ll find a way to enter,
there to taste the pomegranate wine (Canticle stanza 32)…
Heaven will be that: a total entry into the caverns of Christ’s heart, an infinite space for the Father.
Heather, you are living an ecstatic experience as a writer, how very and completely divine and blessed. . .I envy your time there and your solitude and meditations on intimacy with God.
I ran across this on facebook the other day and reading your moments at the top of the mountain and the ever-changing sky I thought if this again
http://mollybackes.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-be-writer.html
Peace be with you and hugs.
Amanda
Amanda, I loved this post by Molly Backes and every single thing in it applied to me: the lonely childhood, the hours of time to idle and dream, the decades of journals, the crappy jobs for low pay. And most of all that she said to be a writer you have to write. A lot. The only thing she might have missed is that being ever so slightly crazy also helps…
Peace and Godspeed to you….
My poet friend Lise Goett of Taos tried to post this on my FB page in honor of my arrival in "the Valley"–apparently "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" is an old African song(!) (?)
O, who will drive the chariot When she comes?
O, who will drive the chariot When she comes?
O, who will drive the chariot,
O, who will drive the chariot,
O, who will drive the chariot When she comes?
King Jesus, he'll be driver when she comes, When she comes . . . .
She'll be loaded with bright Angels When she comes . . . .
She will neither rock nor totter, When she comes . . . .
She will run so level and steady, When she comes . . . .
She will take us to the portals, When she comes . . . .
My son and I watched Kurosawa's Ikiru together at his request. What sustained grief! It's the kind of movie that bears re-viewing.
I have spent the day reading the Introduction to Schmidt's book and creating a compilation of excerpts from it for my own edification. I converted the various definitions that Schmidt, Rahner, & Merton gave of living the Little Way into a question format something like an examination of conscience.
Your comments on Schmidt's book helped to further clarify the Little Way. My spiritual director recommended St. Therese's Little Way to me, but I have had a hard time piecing it together just from her book, The Story of a Soul. I will definitely want to read Schmidt's book as well as yours. Thank you for your blog today and every day.