The Growing Capacity to
Focus and Direct while Dwelling in Chaos.
Oh, if the soul only had to wonder at simple things. Are there any simple things in the face of growing wonder? I think not.
Things are layered, swirled, tumbled and twisted. Things rise, sparkle, dance and dim. Things delight and disturb, stimulate and soothe, confound and clarify.
We do not wonder in our sleep. Wonder wakes us up. But wonder needs the support of focus and direction.
Awake, our souls wonder at all these things: All our thoughts, all our feelings, all our intentions and all the stuff of our stories, our perceptions and our bodily sensations. Most of us automatically tune out most of what is going on in our souls, but as we grow our capacity to focus, we can direct more and more of the creative chaos we dwell in.
Can you smile an inner smile when you find yourself in a wondrous chaos? Can you choose one thing and direct your attention to it? And go deep into it? and deeper again? Can you direct your wonder so that your questions become illuminating, focused on the true, the beautiful, the good? Do you focus on the past, the present, the future, the very flow of time?
Our souls grow the capacity to dance between the forest and the tree.
Tonight recollect your soul’s vast numbers of encounters and experiences of just today. Choose one experience or encounter and focus into it. If you are journaling, write down a question about this one thing and then begin to answer your question. Stay focused and maintain your direction into deep meaning. Be surprised.
Here’s a sweet suggestion: If you love Christmas music, like I do, choose one carol or one song. Listen to it. Now focus on one phrase like “Angels we have heard on high,” “Let heaven and nature sing,” “Joyful and Triumphant,” or “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.” Now focus on this one phrase and direct your attention to what this means to you.
Focusing and directing warms your heart without sentimentalizing. Enjoy and grow your soul’s capacity.
They tell me it was the first real white Christmas in Atlanta in 100 years. You can bet on everything my 2 year old grandson saw today as his first--by the way his saucer eyes and open mouth greet every moment. Rolling the ball of snow up the hill together I was careful to ask for willingness and readiness at every point "Shall we now... roll a snowball?...pick it up?...put it up for the snowman's head?..." etc. Wide eyes, open mouth, big breathless "YES!" at every turn. My moment is that turning moment, as I open eyes wide to this sparkling Christmas universe, mouth open wide, arms outstretched with the one asking me the Question of the moment. Ready to wonder?
ReplyDeleteMy all time favorite Christmas Carol is "People, Look East". The meaning of the lyrics bring wonder every time I read them. They guide me through Advent and Christmas, preparing me for the 12 holy nights. I am very grateful to Eleanor Farjeon for writing this Advent Carol.
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing these reflections on the Holy Nights of christmas. There is a special sense in the air this 2nd night of christmas as the east coast receives some snow. I am feeling a wonderful sense of stillness and quiet as I work outside in the cold, as I walk, etc.... It is so nice to have this peace of mind, body and soul after the busy-ness of yesterday.
ReplyDeleteBlessings, Jeanne
For me wonder is taking things as they are without the need to wonder about them. Our wonder can never be the same as the wonder of a child,not because we are not capable of it, but because they are seeing all as new and we have seen them already. Wonder now is not to have to wonder, but enjoy all there is as it is. Wonder is to be aware of what is as it is.
ReplyDeleteThere is no need to question any more. Wonder becomes the simple aspect of acceptance and surrender. If it is good all the glory is there, visible. If it is chaos all the pain, confusion, turmoil is also there, visible. But there is no more running away from it, but acceptance and surrender and the same peace from the good with its glory prevails. So wonder turns into awareness. The mystery into acceptance. And the surrender is not to have to wonder anymore.
After reading the 2nd Holy Night message, i asked myself the question why it is so hard for me to stay grounded in this time of year. What is it about this season that makes me want to run? and pondering on that question, i did discover some painfull things, but the best thing came when i took a step back to have a sigaret. i suddenly bursted out in laughing, becouse i maneged to get all worked up about this, while there is so much beauty in it. and i said to myself - you are here. you are here now. you've opened up, you've made a start. so go on, open up, and celebrate where you came from.
ReplyDeleteThis Verse of Rudolf Steiner's came to mind for me:
ReplyDeleteAt the Ringing of the Bells
To wonder at beauty,
Stand guard over truth,
Look up to the noble,
Decide for the good:
Leads man on his journey
To goals for his life,
To right in his doing,
To peace in his feeling,
To light in his thought,
And teaches him trust
In the guidance of God
In all that there is:
In the world-wide All,
In the soul's deep soil.
I am so grateful for Heloisa's comment. Like many she describes wondering as "wanting to know why" as a questioning of purpose in regard to her life. This is the way most adults wonder and Heloisa is wise to give this up.
ReplyDeleteThe wonder I work to develop is the wonder of reverence and mystery - looking for the deeper "what," not the "why." Wonder that is the opening to wisdom and the treasure chest of lessons.
I do experience the spiritual world wondering at us and what we are doing with the mysterious gifts of love and freedom. So we need to wonder like the children and like the gods.
I love this suggestion to focus on a phrase from a Christmas carol. This happened naturally to me for years, and was probably my first clue that there was even such a thing as an inner Christmas. Every holiday season, some line from a carol would get stuck in my head like a blinkng neon... "hang the brightest star upon the highest bough" hmm, now what the heck could that mean...? Little openings to inner Christmas.
ReplyDeleteWhen the First Night's message called us to Wonder, immediately came the title I Wonder As I Wander. Better take a closer look at those lyrics, and in the blink of a youtube, there's the mad miracle of some heavenly soprano wafting that beautiful melody into my soul. Many gifts in that song, and I'm blessed with one this Christmas: many long walks through the trees out under the sky, soaking in the Christmas of Nature.
Along with re-reading your brilliant e-book, this carol has opened up a Pandora package of questions. What if the Creche was a constellation of archetypes? What could the elements be, and which ones have a teaching for me this year?
Holy Moley, now I'm off and running through the moonlit snowfield... Thanks, Lynn!
Here is part of what came to me to write. Thank you Lynn and others for clearing the path!
ReplyDeleteThere is a feeling with Christmas of laying down a seed in the snow, even in the darkest days of the year, to grow and bloom later on. That may help explain why Christmas is both deeply felt (sometimes) and sentimentalized (overmuch). It is a noble feeling. The perversion of it would be to try to stay jolly and brightly lit (in every sense) throughout the season and clear through till spring.
We shouldn't try to bluff our way through winter's cold and darkness. We should lay down something of ourselves with that seed in the snow, and send it off to suffer the isolation that winter brings--that is, we send our child out to be born in a lonely and lowly place.
Your lovely suggestion to focus on a line from a Christmas carol resonated with me.
ReplyDeleteWe went to midnight mass on Christmas eve to acknowledge the 'reason for the season'. We usually attend a candlelight service at our non secular church, but we had a schedule conflict and so we found a midnight mass. While we are reverent, we are not catholics, so the Knights of Columbus amused us, and my sweetheart had inner conflict from his childhood. But when I heard the holiday swollen choir sing 'Fall on your knees...' I was moved to my own knees. What else would be an appropriate expression of gratitude? Of love, of being loved? Of wonder?
I had a sense of relief to be able to appreciate that sense of majesty and that I am not above it.
Here am I in Ireland witnessing my very first white Christmas and my first view of snow!!! I Skyped my family in Perth (Australia) and they were boiling! On the other side of Oz there are huge floods. While the people there are struggling to survive I have the luxury to wonder at all that water and what it will do for the (normally) parched country in giving birth to so much new life!
ReplyDelete