Sabbath activities are crossroads where we bump into wonder when we are awake, aware, and attentive. We can walk with clarity and keep a sharp eye. It is in the attentiveness we gain insight, let go, and become enlightened. The wonder is two-fold. It uplifts ordinary acts/events we pass over often and they become extraordinary. As well, we take time and check those things that are different. It is not in sameness we find freedom. It is in opening up and accepting difference that we free ourselves from impenetrable prejudice, prejudgment.
James Broughton used wonderful metaphors and imagery. In letting go, we become intrepid, bold, and fearless explorers. We cut though strings binding us to the familiar and step towards lucent surprises which are always there, but paradoxically block our vision and hide from us.
A paraphrase of St. Benedict suggests we listen with the ear and see with the eye of our heart. In this we elevate the invisible and unheard in Sabbath moments.
Not dawdling
not doubting
intrepid all the way
walk toward clarity
with sharp eye
With sharpened sword
clear cut the path
to the lucent surprise
of enlightenment
At every crossroad
be prepared to bump into wonder
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About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
Simply lovely. Thank you.
You are welcome Christy.
The wonder is two-fold. It uplifts ordinary acts/events we pass over often and they become extraordinary. As well, we take time and check those things that are different. It is not in sameness we find freedom. It is in opening up and accepting difference that we free ourselves from impenetrable prejudice, prejudgment.
Excellent observation, neuroscientist describe our left hemisphere as a computer like cognitive machine. It tries to let us run on auto pilot, detached. It files everything that happens to us, sees an object and then files it away in data banks, next time one of these happens, we will know what to do.
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This filing system runs our life if we are unaware, dissociated of sorts..
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It is as Suzuki says, a beginners mind is what we seek. Watch a child experience something for the first time, there is a moment where this object does not fit into any previous filings so we have wonderment, pure awe in a moment of now.
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Looking below the ego, a non judgmental expansive side exists, expansive as the universe, the difference you speak of.
I agree Marty. Neuroscience has made some excellent inroads, but many meditative practitioners intuitively understand the need to be childlike and see the world through eyes of wonder. The awe makes the world wonderful.
Nice that science backs up what Buddhists found back in the thirteenth century.
I agree.
Loved this Ivon, thanks.
You are welcome David.
At every crossroad
be prepared to bump into wonder
Well I hope so. Bumping into a tree or large stone sucks.
I agree Carl. I have bumped into several trees and stones. I did not enjoy, but others found momentary comic relief.
Love this Ivon!
I try to remind myself to be curious.
We always need to return to the childlike state and explore the world.
This is truly wonderful. There’s only one thing worse than being stuck in a rut and that is not recognizing it..
I agree Marie. Sometimes, we get so accustomed to being in the rut we think it is the normal.
There are so many different sabbaths that each day and every moment could be one.
Taking the time to be in the present is also another way to learn.
I enjoyed this post. Thank you for your visits. ~Jules
Thank you Jules. You are right. Any moment we take the time to pause and be in silence is a Sabbath moment. Wayne Muller in his book Sabbath provided a number of pauses and activities that fit Sabbath practice.
Reblogged this on aksharaalu – Best Collections.
Thank you for the re-blog.