Sabbath’s Circle

Have a great 23rd of July, 2012.

A virtuous circle

Begins at the end

Ends at the beginning.

A source of refuge

Moments of discovery within

No urgency

Besides just breathing.

Just be

With all nature’s cycles

Brings wholeness

Sabbath liberates.

I find life events are increasingly filled with synchronicity. When I posted the poem Auditory Illusion, I had listened to a thunderstorm chase itself in and out of the Spokane area. It thundered overhead, moved off, and returned several times circling in and out of the area for about an hour. After the post, I reflected on life’s circularity as it is and scribbled some thoughts down before going to bed last night.

I heard the rain differently than it was. It sounded like the storm was over, yet, when I got up, it was raining hard. The eaves of the building had tempered the sound. Today, in Wayne Muller’s Sabbath, he wrote about the etymological roots of the words absurd and obedient. Absurd is from the Latin surdus which means deaf and obedient from the Latin to listen. Yesterday, listening or mislistening to the storm and its intensity reminded me of the frequency I misunderstand parts of life and its relationships. Wayne Muller was friend of Henri Nouwen and said he was “a fiercely astute observer of our worried, overfilled lives [and that] … the noise of our lives made us deaf, unable to hear when we are called, or from which direction” (p. 84). I am commited to daily moments of silence and a weekly Sabbath to help me listen when called.

Wayne Muller concludes each short chapter with a brief reflection for Sabbath. The chapter Let it Be is also the title of my favourite Beatles’ songs. Today, the reflection was from Brother David Steindl-Rast an Austrian monk.

“Let the silence drop like a pebble right into the middle of the day and send its ripples out over its surface in ever-widening circles” (p. 86).

Muller, W. (1999). Sabbath: Restoring the sacred rhythm of rest. New York: Bantam Books.