Gaze of Grace
Spiritual Companionship
Welcome dear friend
Are you here, as am I, to know God? To honor an ache that can only be fulfilled by the Holy One?
Most of us will try just about anything to fill it, alcohol, pills, food, sex, another person, a great achievement. Until, after many failed attempts, we come to realize these substitutes cannot quench this thirst. It is holy and must be filled with holiness. There is a Way to meet this longing. It begins by remembering that this longing is also longing for us. It is longing for us to return Home and we are each called by name.
It calls us each but the way it calls us remains beautiful in its multiplicity, mirroring the infinity of God’s reach…the smell of a spring breeze, the chill of a bitter cold dawn, the caw of a crow, at the deathbed of a loved one, at 3am in waking to our newborn’s cry, in the final surrender of an addiction, and so often…in the silence. The question is do we want to remain faithful to this call? Can we remember that there is sacred nourishment being delivered to us and it is what we need most…Pure Love...a love not conditioned on conditions, a love that knows us through and through, and says “that too” to each part of us, especially those parts that we prefer to not see. This Love is what I believe is meant when we speak of salvation.
We are ultimately saved by God’s Love.
A Love that holds the alchemical power of transformation. It can melt us down to our essence and leave us with only the truest elements of ourselves, which I believe is the seed of this same Love. This sacred seed is powerful and equally transformative, especially if we choose to cultivate it. And once we begin to tend to its growth, the harvest will be bountiful and ready to be shared with everything and everyone we encounter. This is a real choice imbued with Hope. If we choose to, we can make space to stay open to this Love; ready to heed to God’s call. To say yes, over and over again, through clenched jaws and clenched fists, through desperate cries and utter confusion, we can still say Yes.
Often, though, we need help in remembering to be faithful because, well, most things of this world will distract us. It is good to be in communion with those who can help us stay devoted. We can help each other regain our vision so we can really see. So that we can see Christ’s light is around, within, among and between us and everything; there is truly no place it is not. I am here, as another human being with all my flaws, deeply devoted to the Way, to listening to what God is asking of me and to receiving Yehsua and Mary Magdalene’s teachings as a path which supports this journey. I am learning to walk this earth with greater reverence for myself and for everything I encounter. To let everything and everyone I meet be my teacher into a greater way of Living, into a greater way of Loving.
If you too, are seeking this, please join me so we can accompany each other and help others along the Way. I desire to support my brothers and sisters individually and in communion. I offer spiritual companionship for a more intimate encounter where we can slow down, listen, reflect and seek together. I also offer monthly gatherings where we do this in communion; we get slow, we get still, we listen, we pray for each other and the world, we share from our heart, and we welcome God’s Grace to move through us and let it pour out from us. We can then meet all we see with the gaze of Grace.
About me and my path
I would say I am trying to get back to the trust in God I had as a small child, when I openly spoke to Jesus and God as though they were my closest friends. As happens for many of us, my life experiences along with some misunderstandings of holy teachings veered me off course. The God I was first introduced to who was observing my sinful behavior simply could not accept me and therefore, I could not accept me. I gradually became disheartened; I fell into drinking to cope with the difficulties of life and concerned myself with things of this material world. It wasn’t all bad, but, for most of it, I felt deeply lost.
Motherhood was the initiation which began my journey back to God. I had to see myself through the eyes of my son which was demanding something of me. One morning after drinking too much, my son, (about 18 months at the time), looked at me as though he was Truth piercing through every fiber of my being. His gaze reflected how I was not okay. I went back into the bathroom when I heard a voice say, “call your brother.” My brother had been sober over a decade. I knew his sobriety and I feared it. Alcohol had become my higher power; I would do just about anything to protect it.
But that voice shook something in me so deep that I did not stop to question. I picked up the phone, and through tears I muffled “I can’t do this anymore” He knew what I meant and took me to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that same evening. That was 10 years ago. I knew I had to stay away from drinking but without another higher power to replace it, it felt like some sort of purgatory. It wasn’t until I turned towards this search that I began to change.
First, I turned towards Buddhism. The notion of original goodness felt like healing medicine from all my years of ingesting original sin. The teachings of Pema Chödrön, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg gently guided me to a place where I could turn towards myself with compassion which I deeply needed. Ultimately, there was still a yearning within me. It was a deep desire for an intimate relationship with God, which is at the heart of the Christian tradition in the teachings of Yeshua and the Christian mystics including St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich among others. I was blessed to be introduced to these teachings through the important work of Father Richard Rohr and James Finley with the Center for Action and Contemplation.
I have been blessed by many teachers on my path. I know I will continue to find more. Among those I honor include Thomas Merton, Father Thomas Keating, Father Greg Boyle, Caroline Myss, Mirabai Starr, Lorna Byrne, Neil Douglas-Klotz, John O’Donohue, and many more. I honor Alize Lily Mathea whose devotional path as Priestess School Facilitator held me and my sisters in the most safe and sacred container as we journeyed together in becoming priestesses of the Celtic Rose Mystery School. I also honor her partner Oliver William Mathea as his many teachings including those of the Essenes and the Gnostic Gospels have provided much insight and companionship.
I feel profoundly grateful to my teachers for pointing the way back to remembering that I can have an intimate relationship with God and God desires this closeness with me. I am devoted to being aware of God’s love in each present moment. I know this sounds extraordinary but the extraordinariness of it is hidden in the ordinariness of every day; in washing dishes, cooking dinner, in my work as a therapist, in the holy moments of embrace from my son, in the quiet moments of prayer, in my song, in my laughter, in my fear, in my sin, in ALL. The only challenge is can I remember this? This is a mighty challenge because, well, I am going to forget to remember…but with enough devotion, I can catch myself and bring myself back to this remembrance. This is my path and maybe it sounds like yours too?
