The Meaning of Intimacy
It is a beautiful day, so I ignore my rule of not going down to the river on weekends - taking a break from emptying closets, purging, and cleaning. I sit in the car by the banks of the river and read my new poetry book for nearly a hour, enjoying the breeze. I hope to make it back to the river in the next couple of days, while the weather is still so inviting, and bring Grace, my kayak.
Last night I finished a trilogy of books by Gunilla Norris, a therapist and author of many spiritual books. Three of her books had been published in one edition: Sharing Silence, Becoming Bread, and Journeying in Place.
This little excerpt on intimacy comes from the third book:
"Intimacy cannot be commanded or planned. It is not willed but happens by grace and opens the inner doors of the heart. It more readily happens when I lay no claim to anything and discover instead what is already present, already given.
All true intimacies are gifts. They appear as if from behind us, beside us, above us, below us. We usually cannot see them coming. They take our whole attention, and in the process we have a chance to come face-to-face with something we did not know about ourselves and the world.
To commune, is to discover and to be discovered is deeply human. Real convergences are revelations that lift us out of ourselves, out of recoiling from any aspect of reality. We experience the Self then - all possessive pronouns gone - the joy of existence, which is the light within everything, the light that burns for its own sake declaring, 'I am that I am.'
The Latin word for intimate is intimus, 'inmost.' I know that when I live in an 'inmost' manner...I see and know much more about the world and myself..."
And from another section of the book:
"...We surrender to no one finally but to our own soul, to the essence of ourselves, which is hidden in God. Sweet and wild is the experience of surrender. there is nothing more intimate..."
Last night I finished a trilogy of books by Gunilla Norris, a therapist and author of many spiritual books. Three of her books had been published in one edition: Sharing Silence, Becoming Bread, and Journeying in Place.
This little excerpt on intimacy comes from the third book:
"Intimacy cannot be commanded or planned. It is not willed but happens by grace and opens the inner doors of the heart. It more readily happens when I lay no claim to anything and discover instead what is already present, already given.
All true intimacies are gifts. They appear as if from behind us, beside us, above us, below us. We usually cannot see them coming. They take our whole attention, and in the process we have a chance to come face-to-face with something we did not know about ourselves and the world.
To commune, is to discover and to be discovered is deeply human. Real convergences are revelations that lift us out of ourselves, out of recoiling from any aspect of reality. We experience the Self then - all possessive pronouns gone - the joy of existence, which is the light within everything, the light that burns for its own sake declaring, 'I am that I am.'
The Latin word for intimate is intimus, 'inmost.' I know that when I live in an 'inmost' manner...I see and know much more about the world and myself..."
And from another section of the book:
"...We surrender to no one finally but to our own soul, to the essence of ourselves, which is hidden in God. Sweet and wild is the experience of surrender. there is nothing more intimate..."
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