A Guidepost on the Journey

It's the first day of my 50th year.

Yesterday I turned 49 and, although you can't really tell from the photo above, there was a partial solar eclipse at sunset. Not being superstitious, I take this as neither a good or bad omen. It was just a beautiful and natural occurrence that took place on a special day for me.

At some point in the last 48 hours the seed of an idea has been planted within me: To make this milestone year a particularly intentional one in terms of my being consciously grounded in – and thus open to – the Divine Presence.

Now, what exactly this means, I'm still figuring out. But I'm grateful to my dear friend Cathy in Australia for sending me the following quote from Henri Nouwen, one that I believe serves as an important guidepost as I enter this time of intentionality and discernment.

Deep silence leads us to suspect that, in the first place, prayer is acceptance. A person who prays is a person standing with their hands open to the world. They know that God will choose to be revealed in the nature which surrounds them, in the people they meet, in the situations they run into. They trust that the world holds God’s secret within it, and they expect that secret to be shown to them. Prayer creates that openness where God can give the divine Self to them. Indeed, God wants to give Self; God wants to surrender to the person God has created, God even begs to be admitted into the human heart.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Be Just in My Heart
• Prayer and the Experience of God in an Ever-Unfolding Universe
• May Balance and Harmony Be Your Aim
• Journeying Into the Truth . . . Valiantly, of Course!
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All