Friends,
Someone asked me as I began this year long retreat what I would get from it. I pondered a moment and said, "Nothing." Now it might appear on the surface that anyone who is setting about for a year's labour, albeit a project of inner work, and expects to get nothing from it, is a candidate for lunacy. This is not the first time my reality orientation might have been questioned. Yet that is the logic of the culture of the world of human society based on separateness and competition. Isn't this what Yeshua spoke of when he challenged us to be "in" the world, but not "of" the world. To live a life rooted in the reality of the Heart, in the Reality of the Christos, is to be in tension with, to be rejected by the world and the values of human society. The Gospel beatitudes tell us that accessibility to the Kingdom of God happens not when we grasp, not when we seek more, but when the grasping fist becomes an open hand, when we cease from taking and craving, but open, release, and offer in love. The limitless life of Yeshua, the Living Spring within us, then becomes possible.
Meister Eckhart says that God doesn't have a choice. When we are ready, God in God's nature must pour God's Self into the space that awaits. So, perhaps I am doing nothing more than making space, space for God to live and breath, space for Yeshua to breathe in me and I to breath Yeshua. This is the Great Way of Christosis, becoming Christ in each moment of consecration. Nothing dramatic, just breathing in and breathing out, in Adoration and Self-offering, in sweeping the floor and cleaning out the house, in cooking the meals, in quiet presence with my wife,Jeanette, in my silent sitting Prayer of the Heart communion with Beloved Yeshua, entering into Christosis. In each breath, in each day, in growing spaciousness. In this I get nothing, I only learn to be more deeply and fully given.
Blessings always,
Bill Ryan
cmpnwtr@earthlink.net
