OpenSpirit Sunday Evening: May 17, 2009; 7-8pm; Performing Arts Center of MetroWest
“Glimpses of the Divine”
You know the experience: in the middle of attending to something pressing, worrisome, or tedious, you suddenly find yourself and the tangle of things demanding your attention interrupted. A moment of insight. A sense of being “at-oned” (as the late-medieval visionary, Julian of Norwich, was fond of putting it) with the world, or some local instance of it. A realization of giftedness. A deep breath of mercy.
Julian of Norwich
We’ll dwell in these experiences in our worship gathering. Some will come from a marvelous poem by Jane Kenyon, “Briefly it Enters, and Briefly Speaks” (find it at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15916). Each line begins with the phrase familiar to us from Jesus’ teaching in the gospel of John: “I am. . .”.
Kenyon extends them beyond “the good shepherd,” “the vine,” “the bread of life,” etc., to include ordinary images (as these, too, are) from her daily life. She adds a line taken right from Julian’s writings: “I am the maker, the lover, the keeper,” this mystic’s interpretation of the trinity in a non-gendered form.
What are the moments when you might say, “Yes, I sensed God’s presence as love, or mercy, or kindness, in that moment.” Translate it into the phrase, “I am. . .” In this way, we’ll build a story of how the divine is present among us, when we have eyes to see. We’ll share our “glimpses” and shape our own witness.
Are you seeking new ways to worship? Yearning for fresh expressions of an ancient tradition? Are you hungry for authentic spiritual community? Come, join us at OpenSpirit. And all shall be well. In fact, as Dame Julian would say, ‘All manner of things shall be well.’ Pray with us: Come, Open Spirit, come!