A congregation of the United Church of Canada
NOTICINGS…
July 20, 2022
I finished a book! I started it back in the fall, and then I couldn’t seem to accomplish more than a chapter at a time for months. Then I had some holiday time, and suddenly I had something I couldn’t seem to find in any measure for a long time – spaciousness. I’ve grown to learn that this is an incredibly powerful word – spaciousness. It’s counterintuitive in that it seems on its surface to be so innocuous, and so passive, and so easy. But it isn’t. It’s actually incredibly subversive!
Spaciousness is freedom. Not that insultingly idiotic type of freedom that gets trumpeted at protest rallies – but real freedom. Spaciousness is an openness to spiritual movement that simply can’t be heard or discerned in the midst of the give and take of noisy regular life. Spiritual spaciousness comes when your heart and mind can align in a kind of open, stepping back from the swirl of the regular. And so, finishing a book that I tried to start in the mist of Covid craziness was a monumental accomplishment for me. Sad, but true.
And then, remarkably, within a week of finishing the first book, I finished the second of the series last night. All I needed was some spaciousness and wouldn’t you know it I finished two books within the week. I guess my point is that as soon as you allow yourself to take some spaciousness – as soon as I allow myself to turn off the extraneous world and grasp some spaciousness to just be – transformation occurs! Or at least the possibility of transformation occurs, now that all your energy isn’t martialed to staying afloat.
So now I’m on to book three of the series – because I finally have the capacity to actually read for the first time in months (years?) and enjoy it. I receive that as a tremendous gift, as I stay up late and get lost in page after page after page. It’s not that reading in itself is particularly spiritual, it’s the capacity to read – the spaciousness, the freedom, the openness. That’s the gift. That’s what feels like a little miracle. I’ll take it! Where might you find some spaciousness in your life, and what might you do with it?
Shalom,
Rev. Larry