Spiritual Poetry From Joyce Rupp

This is from Joyce Rupp's book, Dear Heart Come Home: The Path of Midlife Spirituality.  I am leading a study of one of her books and I came across this and used it in class as a lectio divina. I could tell it resonated with some members as much as it did with me.    I find that my soul is soothed lately by beautiful poetic writing that speaks of God's love.  A friend introduced me to Dr. James Finley, a contemplative teacher (and Merton scholar) in video form a few months ago and he speaks in much the same way.

Hope you enjoy.  I will comment with what called out to me.



Preface

the persistent voice of midlife
wooed and wailed, wept and whined,
nagged like an endless toothache,
seduced like an insistent lover, 
promised a guide to protect me
as I turned intently toward my soul.

as I stood at the door of "Go Deeper"
I heard the ego's howl of resistance,
felt the shivers of my false security
but knew there could be no other way.
inward I traveled, down, down,
drawn further into the truth
than I ever intended to go.

as I moved far and deep and long
eerie things long lain hidden 
jeered at me with shadowy voices,
while love I'd never envisioned
wrapped compassionate ribbons
'round my fearful, anxious heart.

further in I sank, to the depths,
past all my arrogance and confusion,
through all my questions and doubts, 
beyond all I held to be fact.

finally I stood before a new door:
the Hall of Oneness and Freedom.
uncertain and wary, I slowly opened,
discovering a space of welcoming light.

I entered the sacred inner room
where everything sings of Mystery.
no longer could I deny or resist
the decay of clenching control 
and the silent gasps of surrender.

there in that sacred place of my Self
Love of a lasting kind came forth, 
embracing me like a long beloved one
come home for the first time.

much that I thought to be "me"
crept to the corners and died.
in its place a Being named Peace
slipped beside and softly spoke my name:
"Welcome home, True Self,
I've been waiting for you."

---Joyce Rupp

A Partner to Dance With

This is from Richard Rohr's daily email and it really spoke to me. These are the kinds of thoughts I have that I cannot express (yet) in the beautiful way he does, yet I can aspire to because If there is no aspiration, there is no moving forward.

For me, prayer is no longer to ask for things that I what I want or because I am "supposed to" because someone is watching over me and judging, it has been morphing into what he so aptly names an interior journey. He writes it so beautifully. And I love at the end that he describes that we have a dancing partner with God. Now that is a vision that I can hold onto and move forward with. No fear, just love.

“Everything exposed to the light itself becomes light,” says
Ephesians 5:13. In prayer, we merely keep returning the divine gaze and we become its reflection, almost in spite of ourselves (2 Corinthians 3:18). The word “prayer” has often been trivialized by making it into a way of getting what we want. But I use “prayer” as the umbrella word for any interior journeys or practices that allow you to experience faith, hope, and love within yourself. It is not a technique for getting things, a pious exercise that somehow makes God happy, or a requirement for entry into heaven. It is much more like practicing heaven now.

Such prayer, such seeing, takes away your anxiety for figuring it all out fully for yourself, or needing to be right about your formulations. At this point, God becomes more a verb than a noun, more a process than a conclusion, more an experience than a dogma, more a personal relationship than an idea. There is Someone dancing with you, and you are not afraid of making mistakes.