Mary of Nazareth’s receptive way of life reflects the way whose time has come because we too, are to birth the divine into time. But here’s the catch: we’ve got to be ourselves to do so, and this means being free of those “should do” things that we believe are needed to attain a certain end or outcome.
I know I can’t be receptive if I let myself be driven to, or by, promotion, which at times like this, when a new book (“Memoria”) is coming out seems like an imperative. But when you and I catch ourselves, and break out of doing one more, and one more thing described as the “tried and true way,” we are contributing to “the end of time as we’ve known it.” That ending is an opening for a new beginning. Can I “create the new” by simply sharing my dialogue with Mary as a labor of love? By sharing that she will console and inspire you, as well as welcome you to be The New, and create The New?
I am barely a third of the way through Memoria. Not devouring. Sipping, rather, and marveling. and then letting the warmth and wonder of it spread through my entire being. Continually surprising revelations of the New through what is easily overlooked as ordinariness and daily struggle and “shoulding” all over ourselves. I remembered Emily Dickinson’s:
It is That
Distills amazing sense
From ordinary Meanings –
And Attar so immense
From the familiar species
That perished by the Door –
We wonder it was not Ourselves
Arrested it – before –
Your courage and devotion in revealing to us new ways of being excite my heart! Thank you Mari!
Dear Paula, I’m a week from returning from my sabbatical but am so glad I was drawn to come here. Thank you so much for sharing your response to Memoria. I loved your word “shoulding” and Emily Dickinson’s poetry. But what I particularly appreciate is “your” appreciation of the ordinary!
Mirari!
The wonder of receptivity. I just finished Memoria and it is alive and undoing the way of the old the part that jumps up and tries to run with it on the short leash of false knowing that keeps the world running in circles chasing it’s tail. I smile at the overconfident memory and choose to remember now instead. Memoria. There is no need to do anything. Because EVERYTHING is happening within receptivity.
Em, I just love this! The “wonder” of receptivity. Thank you so much for reading and responding to Memoria.