Today, after I got home from class-- which was a full 8 hours of learning how to use the computer system-- I found two emails: one was a poem from a daily poem subscription and the other was my enneathought.*
The poem is called "The Moment" and it's from Margaret Atwood:
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.And my enneathought said this:
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
No matter what type we are, Holy Law is the dynamic, living unity of everything as an unfolding process. There can be no independent doing or accomplishment because everything is happening together.
Holy synchronicity, right? And I mean Holy with a capital H. Holy.
How perfect that these two texts would collide on the same day that I start CPE. While this experience is about me learning and growing and learning new ways to be in ministry with others, chaplaincy is not about me at all. It is about entering the cosmic flow of dialogue with a patient; it's about letting go of my own ego and desires; it's about encountering the unfolding of life before me; it's about paying attention to the gifts of life and death; it's about the living unity and dynamism of everything; it's about being 'a visitor time after time' and not pretending like I know everything; it's about being curious; it's about finding and being found. Without G-d** this experience is nothing. Which means I am never doing this work independently-- though I may like to think so. G-d is present with me in every moment, every prayer, every mistake, every hurdle, every learning. Every Everything.
G-d, in search for communion, created the world in G-d's own image-- that multifarious and complex image. In this diversity and unity (but not uniformity), we are called to care for each other and seek justice through fostering right relationships with one another. The mission statement of the health system for whom I am working says this:
We serve together in the spirit of the Gospel to be a compassionate and transforming healing presence within our communities.
Yes. I yearn to be a part of that. I yearn to serve together, understanding that nothing is done without the unfolding of the rest of life; I yearn to serve in the spirit of the Gospel understanding that I own nothing and seek to be just one speck in someone's healing process; I yearn to be a compassionate and transforming healing presence because I know it is that to which I am so deeply called; and I yearn to do all of this within [these] communities because it is a place that values the dignity and respect of the vulnerable.
When I write it all down, I get really excited...
and yet there are those pesky dragons....
*Enneathought is a daily email from the Enneagram Institute, which I love. To learn more about it or what your enneagram number might be, follow this link. Also I love talking about the enneagram so feel free to engage me around that as well.
**I use ‘G-d’ as a way to reference the mystery and vastness of the Divine. Dashes indicate that the reader should take note of the substance between the dashes. In this case, it is my hope that to use a dash instead of an ‘o’ we are reminded to stand in awe of the ineffable, limitlessness of the Holy—an unfinished word for a Still-Speaking G-d. It also hearkens back to G-d’s chosen name in the Hebrew Scriptures: יהוה, Yahweh, which is actually an non-word in Hebrew.
2 comments:
Jeepers, Emily. I was thinking of reactivating my blogging but, after reading your prose, I may not. Beautiful two first CPE posts (although, my eyes still aren't back to normal and I read "medieval mop makers" and was thoroughly confused about why they'd talk about dragons into the unknown. Working on my ordination paper. Am also considering CPE, either one unit or the extended unit one. Blessings on your way. Love, frances
your reflections are wonderful. from my own perspective as a 2 and as a codependent, I am a first to diminish my own gifts. What I feel invited to do based on this entry is recognize that my gifts are not small in terms of impact or significance, but are a piece of a larger schema of healing and kin-dom building. I feel invited to be gifted, competent, and useful and recognize the source of those gifts. keep going, dear one.
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