Accepting the gift of our own being

From Laurence Freeman OSB in A SHORT SPAN OF DAYS: Meditation and Care for the Dying (London: Medio Media, 2010), p. 42.

[T]here has to be a distinction between prayer as a petition and prayer as an entry into the reality of a situation: into Reality itself. What we are doing when we meditate is accepting the gift of our own being, and if our being happens to be full of joy and light at that moment we accept that. If our being happens to be facing fear or the trauma of death we accept that.

It is the acceptance of our own being, as we are, at this moment in our life’s journey. That is what meditation is about. It is not trying to regain control over life, not trying to change God’s mind, not trying to change our fate or destiny, not trying to reinstate the threatened ego as managing director of our personality. Meditation leads to an acceptance of the reality of the human situation, as it is here and now.

After meditation: “THERESE” by Anne Porter in LIVING THINGS: Collected Poems (Hanover: Zoland Books, 2006), p. 89.

Therese, your statue’s in our parish church,
But when you were a child you crossed these mountains
And drank the clear rock-shattered mountain water
And picked the daisies in the soaring meadows.

And crept like us, over the black ravines.
“I can only fall into God,” you said.