I entrust myself to your love, dear God. You love me in all the dimensions of myself. My confusion, my inadequacy, my desires, my body, my sexuality; even in the darkness of my shame, all my connections and disconnections. I both hold onto and know I must let go of these things, these desires, these consolations; these ways of coping so I can enter the night of being in You where your light dawns. For you are always there within, manifesting your life in this earthen form, longing to exert your love, your grace in the midst of my humaning. You love me Oh great love that I know nothing about! Immersed in your love I Am…. Hidden in your love I am Soul….. Open in your love I am Me….. Known in your love I am Beauty…. Ravished by your love I am Desired…. Held in your love I am Comforted….. Kissed by your love I am Us….. Surrendered to you love i am no more….
Contemplative Experience
Contemplation is a supernatural love and knowledge of God, simple and obscure, infused by Him in the summit of the soul, giving a direct, experiential contact with Him. -Thomas Merton-
Letting my soul come out in this quiet space like a shy animal on a path through the forest at dusk. This longing for connection is answered by integration of the pure experience of love overflowing into the innermost space of being where Divine pathos flames brilliantly like distant suns of starlight finding depths of resonances in my being. A new visage unknown to the flowing current of common existence invites the language of desire in body, breath, birdcall, tree and grass blade to converse. Suddenly She’s here before me! I’m petrified as she leans towards me ravishing away all the mistaken ways I compromise and try to force union on my own. My separated one panics at such naked nearness as she tenderly touches my face, cupping my tears in her hand. Without words the touch says breathe! Breathe the calm darkness of the earth and the light of heaven here in you and me. Look up! Into my eyes—feel my depths lean toward you, love you, know you. My blood calms, as her perfume dissolves into my heart space allowing a new countenance to appear in the reflection of his eyes.
Reflections after reading Thomas Merton
My worries are trivial to God. He wants me to experience the serious joy of Love. A Love that dances through all creation. She wants me to know the joy of love that expresses so easily in creation. Its’s a dance I am endlessly invited to join. God is always reaching out, saying, “May I have this dance?” When you come with me to the dance floor its like nothing else you’ve ever known. Allow yourself to become lost in the seduction, lost in the rhythmic movements of love. Its a vibration that moves through your body to everything in you and around you. It’s a dance in a beautiful garden with bees, butterflies, flowers and trees swaying in the wind. The music of a birdcall opens the heart to Love’s rhythmic variations.
There is a rhythm we are invited to get in step with, to move into. It starts with letting go of certainty and plunging into mystery. Its like waking up inside the animal of my body and letting it sway with the rhythm of Love’s presence sustaining everything in this instant, where everything is loved into being. Each flashing instant is new, another movement and step on the dance floor.
God fills up the emptiness of the universe and dances with the stars. Dark matter bends in the gravitational force of Love and fills the vast emptiness with the dancing light of stars. galaxies, nebula, black holes. God speaks “let it be” into emptiness and time, the world and I are dancing forth on the vibration of His vocal chords.
The light of Love dances through space and time, consummates in the wedding of God with matter forming conscious life. The harder I try to make sense of all that happens, the more I look at things from the perspective of my small selfish existence and believe its all about me, I will stay trapped in a closed loop of pain and purposelessness, collapse in on myself and ultimately despair. It doesn’t make much difference. No fall into myself can change what is always happening in this dance. The delightful rhythm of the dance will continue, nothing can stop it. It is everywhere, inside me outside me, all around me. It keeps time with my heartbeat and yours, innate to being, to everything that exists.
Me and Him, me and Her together where I lose the memory of what I think I am. This Presence desires to be recognized and entered into— let go of self-consciousness and sway, dance, be vulnerable, cast away the clothes you wear and give your love to Me! Her dance swirls, entangles, absorbs. Let the seriousness and dignity go! Let this be the child like hour of our spontaneous Love dance!
Reflections on Love
If not for the shadows in my own heart, I would not know the measure of your grief. If I could
not see the reflection of love in her eyes, I could not drown in love’s ocean. If there was no
moonlight on the meadow, night’s silver beauty would remain lost. If I were not the river, what
is it that flows in my veins? If not for my dog’s jubilant reception, I would not know how to welcome
this day. If there were no ways into mystery, I would dry up and die like an autumn leaf. If there was
no way to be alone, I would not know the eagle’s joyful solitude. If the story did not appear naked
on my ear, I would not be transformed into my lover’s substance. If I was not held dear to your heart, my roots
could not grow deep into the waiting darkness. If not for the blissful delight of a baby at the breast, I would not
know how you quiet me with your love.
© Mark Williams