‘I feel called by a power greater than me to grow beyond my beginnings.’
Thought for the week: Daniel Clarke Flynn goes up a Chardin path
I recently wrote something as part of my participation in the online six-week Woodbrooke course ‘European Quaker Voices’. I have called it ‘Personal Reflections Today in Five European Languages’. It is subject to continual change as I continue to grow and see differently. It is a simple summary in six reflections of where I am today on my lifelong spiritual journey of eighty-one years in this life.
For me, it’s more of a poetic statement without following poetic discipline, similar to one of the Christian mystics I continue to read today, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He was silenced by the Vatican in his day, but lives on in the hearts and minds of many around the world who continue to read his many inspirational works. In fact, I believe that’s how we may all ‘live on’ after we depart this life, melting back into the Energy of the Universe from whence we came. ‘Remember man that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return.’
Here is the English version of my piece:
I have come to realise that a power greater than my parents or me brought me into this life with a specific genetic and cultural heritage, and maintains me in existence.
I have come to believe that my job each day is to wake up and show up, accepting my entire past and the here and now without judgment, asking in silent prayer for positive guidance this day. When I do that, I feel called by a power greater than me to grow beyond my beginnings in order to see and do more in thanks for this free gift of life I have been given.
I start the day by gently waking up all four parts of my humanity: my body, emotions, rational mind, and intuitive mind with espresso, inspirational readings from all sources, and stretching and light calisthenics. I listen to my body, emotions, and rational mind.
I then wait in silence for positive intuition, accepting and leaving alone negative intuition. Both come to me from power greater than myself. Intuition, I have learned, is the most neglected part of my humanity. I stop, look and listen, and choose positive attitude and action, leaving the results to power greater than me.
I have come to believe that relaxed, repetitive practice of positive attitude and action in all my affairs on a daily basis has brought me all that I value most today.
By choosing positive intuition, I create a better world for myself and for others this day to the limits of my inherited talents, learned skills, unique experience, and choice of attitude, the basic human freedom.
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