Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole
heart.
- Joel 2:12
Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer,
worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of
despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet
again, come, come. **(See video below) - Rumi
Two summers ago, I was taking an online course with a favorite Buddhist
teacher. Midway through the course, he
posed a thought that really grabbed me and offered great comfort. It’s a lesson I’m quick to forget and
re-membering myself to it, almost always offers great comfort. The teaching is what he calls, “the elasticity
of time.” He offered that, since the
past has already happened and exists as a memory, and since the future is
purely potential that merely exists in our imagination, in truth, the present
moment holds BOTH the past and the future.
We needn’t push-pull ourselves between either extreme but rather, we can
notice current time and space as the place that understands and knows all that
has been. AND is ready to receive all
that will be, in a spacious, elastic sort of way.
Ahhhhhhhh…..
And now, when I’m lost in nostalgia, or regretting something I did that’s
already occurred; OR when I’m worried and anticipating the things that have not
yet happened, I catch myself. It takes a
couple of seconds to see I’m deep in a rabbit hole and then, something else
happens… Do you know this feeling?
For me, it feels a bit like waking up and realizing I have an
unscheduled Saturday. I instantly feel
my interior rest in That Which Is Greater (God). I do not have to fix the past (not anymore
than I have already tried), nor do I need to solve for all the anticipated
hurdles I cannot confirm will actually happen.
This experience of resting is, I think, is what Lent asks of us – that
we re-member ourselves to the great, loving Source who holds us always (even
when we forget). And that we, upon
re-membering, return to Divinity’s intimate embrace. May we know we are part of God’s vast web,
simultaneously contributing to and receiving from a deep, multi-dimensional
flow of Grace that has been, and will be, and Is. And from this place – the, “elasticity of
time,” – may we move and act and serve as the living Body of Christ.
Where do you tend to
get most lost – in the past, or the future?
Where do you do your best re-membering?
What does Returning feel like for you?
About
Lauren: Lauren
lives in Berkeley, CA. She serves as Dean
at The Chaplaincy Institute (ChI), an interfaith seminary and tends her private
practice as a spiritual director. You
can read Lauren’s blog at: http://www.laurenvanham.com/
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