Mary wrote:
I was trying to find a poem or a relevant quote in response to your poems and the Pascal extract, but couldn't find anything suitable, so here is something which was said to me just before I went on stage as Kate, in "Dancing at Lughnasa" a couple of years ago.'Live in the moment'.It has turned out to be the best advice for performance that I think I have ever had.
To project one's thoughts too far ahead, leads one to stop trusting and at the very worst, to blank completely in panic. to 'live in the moment' is to savour each word, to listen and act appropriately calling to mind all ones skill and judgement and experience gained during rehearsal.It occurs to me that one of the mysteries that is so hard to grasp is how God exists outside of time as we know it. Our natural predilection is to push our thoughts into the future and thereby spoil our present. I love the phrase "I AM THAT I AM".I have a wonderful little book called "The Path of Waiting " by the late Henri Nouwen. In it he says: 'to wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life'. In so doing, he says we relinquish control over our lives thus letting God define them. He also draws the distinction between hope and wishing; 'hope is trusting that something will be fulfilled according to the promises and not just according to our wishes'. thus hope is always open-ended.
Thank you, Mary, and bless you and your family this Mothering Sunday.
From Robert. Nice to hear from you, Mary. Stephen Verney was Bishop of Repton in Derby diocese years ago, and had a considerable influence on me. He immersed himself in St John's Gospel. One of the things he observed is that "I AM" stands in complete contrast to "I". Jesus said several things beginning "I am . . ." and sometimes simply "I am", for example when he came to the disciples walking on water (John 6.16-21). English translations say, "It is I; do not be afraid." The Greek is "I am; do not be afraid." Jesus takes the name of God, but then in Chapter 9 the blind man comes back from washing the mud that Jesus had put on his eyes, and people can't believe it is the same man. English versions say, "I am the man" but the Greek is "I am". He has entered into the consciousness that, as Jesus was sent by the Father, so he is sent ("Siloam", the pool where he washed, means "sent"). Stephen Verney wrote, "the truth which is in the Son is coming alive in Everyman". Do you remember Mohammed Ali: "I am the greatest"? God invites us to a greater mystery - "I am".
ReplyDeleteRobert.