4.16.2023. An excerpt from Laurence Freeman OSB, “Meeting the Other,” LIGHT WITHIN: The Inner Path of Meditation (New York: Crossroad, 1989), p. 67.
When we meditate we learn to leave all images of ourself behind because the images are strangers to our real self. They are like inaccurate labels. Our labeling self-analysis, which thinks to be so clever, isolates us from the knowledge of the real self and from the redemptive encounter with reality. We imprison ourselves in self-consciousness. We have only to understand that we have been liberated and that perfect liberty is achieved in the depth of our spirit in the liberty of Christ, the liberty of his pure love. We can turn to that reality if only we can learn to be simple, to accept the freely given gift and to be faithful to the gift. If we learn to say the mantra it teaches us how to love, and it will teach us how to expand beyond all images of ourself into the reality of being one with the reality of Christ. It will teach us to be ourself and to know the joy of being in communion.
After Meditation, “Black Swallowtail,” Mary Oliver, RED BIRD (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008), p. 40.
The caterpillar,
interesting but not exactly lovely,
humped along among the parsley leaves
eating, always eating. Then
one night it was gone and in its place
a small green confinement hung by two silk threads
on a parsley stem. I think it took nothing with it
except faith, and patience. And then one morning
it expressed itself into the most beautiful being.
Image by Anke Sundermeier from Pixabay
