Aligning with Grace

"By means of all created things, without exception, the Divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, when in fact, we live steeped in its burning layers." ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Chardin was a Jesuit scientist - a brilliant paleontologist, geologist, and philosopher, whose works were at times banned. His insights and reflections were well before its time and helped pave the way for more recent philosophical, theological, and scientific discourse. He was silenced by the Church, and yet he did not lose his faith. He was born in 1881, and died in April of 1955, just a few months before I was born. These words came to me precisely at a time when I have been reflecting on how the very essence of our beings seems to be comprised of layers. All the significant issues in our lives are similarly constructed of layers, and somehow we must revisit them again and again and again... This poem came to me yesterday, an

After morning meditations, I head down to the river on a very resplendent fall morning. The air is crisp, and the sun shines brightly, a total gift, after nearly 24 hours of steady and much needed rain... It has been a while since I visited this river, which is swollen right now, and greatly abundant. There was a time, not so long ago, I visited it every day, offering prayers, lovingkindness meditations, and numerous spiritual practices, that I now realize, were not so much meant for the others they were intended for, but to release much more in me than I could ever have envisioned or thought possible. I stand at the launching area, and survey the ondulations of waves, breaking up at the banks of the river, scattering and dissipating, merely a footprint away from my toes... In some ways, the topography of the river resembles the covers of a few of my manuscripts, but in other ways, this river is very different. The river and I - are the same - and yet, we are not... I try to remember t