Day of Seasons

Today is a grey and cloudy day, which seems to have gotten inside of me somehow putting a little bit of a slow down on the list of things I would like to get done!

Solider on I say - Sister says wait, embrace and just sit with it! 

I have a list of review questions to answer and also been asked to write about Elizabeth Prout. When I first heard of this 'task' I was rather excited. Elizabeth is a women I have so much love and respect for, with at times feeling like she is from a fairytale. I share a lot of commonalities with her, making it feel so much easier to reach out and build a relationship with her. 

When it comes time to put pen on paper my mind draws a blank, how can I? 

Every time I hear her name my ears pop up eager to gain more insight into this women who lived as a servant to the Lord in the only way she knew how, with all her heart. 

For a while I have been thinking of a starting point to get me going… as yet nothing coming to the foreground, yet give it time! 

Some days I do wonder what it was like for her, in her time and how did she express herself? What was it like to be in her presence?

Times have changed so much from then to now, while on the same token have not changed at all! 

I wonder if on her walk to school to teach she noticed the flowers that were fortunate enough to survive on the sidewalk, breaking through concrete and ash; without even water or a gardener's hand to nourish and enlighten. Im certain if she witnessed this then it would have filled her heart with a new sense of spirit that the Lord seeds are planted even in the most unlikely of places. 

I dearly hope she heard an orchestra of birds echo joyfully, the tune that sinks straight into your heart's bones, awakening a part of your senses not felt since young lost in freedom of been young in green fields where the sunshine seemed to brighten everything including self.  

There are so many moments I wonder, what were her life seasons like for her… as I can look back with the limited insight and see differently to how it must have felt to live it. I wonder if a certain season in her life felt more uplifted than any others, possibly feeling a radiance that was ripe with desire to breath free and an inspiration to renew only the soul's greatest passions, inspired by anything that appeared to be fresh and new. 

I'm sure just like my youth treasures and fresh hues, fantasies have warmly bled into adulthood, leaving a sense of breathless and seasoned self for a rejuvenation of sorts allowing self to wonder what the season lay in front holds…  awaiting songs that may change everything. 

I guess for today in this moment, where words don't flow too easily to help with the task before me; what I take from Elizabeth, is that learning a different rhythm with a focus upon awakening a sense to a greater strength of purpose. From the innocence of a wide-eye and curious child, the fearless abandon of a teenager rebelling simply because her heart cry to be reunited with its creator; and with the hopeful wisdom of a saint and ancient spry women…. all is laid out in seasons with the cleaning of the inner spirit and the beautiful, budding rose blossom against the sharp and dangerous thorns that came a little too close at times. The growing capacity excel this, without fear of pain grew beyond any limits, weeding her garden to allow room for new spirits and loved ones who flowers bend more easily towards her awakened and enlightened path of prosperous peace. 

Not only do I wonder about Elizabeth herself, yet her environment and how would she see ours. I guess Im starting to realize that this questioning is frame in the wrong light and possibly has a rather large gem under it. 

Apart of me instantly thinks Shepherd! I guess it highlights a little the metaphor of a shepherd and the sheep. I mean, shepherd is nothing to do with power over as it is about suffering with. The very nature of a shepherd, especially in Jesus time, was one of the most marginalized members of society. 

Often today the scriptural metaphor of shepherd and the sheep is mangled. The charitable model of modern society has been built on the obscene notion that people should actually be treated like sheep and that all they really need is a strong and wise shepherd to tell them what to do. This model, which moves easily between paternalism and punishment, comfortably accommodates such injustices as controlling people and disempowerment 'for their own good' is often the message that follows. 

Elizabeth shows how everything is turn upside down, with the spirit providing all of us, even Elizabeth herself, with a radical way of unlearning our acceptances of 'guidance' from below and learning with new hearts the liberation from above. Its not a matter of looking to the sky for a sign, after all Jesus presents us with an absolutely provocative challenge to listen closely to the signs of the times; the still, small sound of humanity in history. 

The people in Elizabeth time, as too Jesus time, as too now, can be described as being distressed and scattered, with sense of alienation, this crushing of the spirit which is so central to marginalizsation. People feeling that they are devalued, left on the 'scrap-heap', and worst yet atomized on their own, left to bear the blame or burden of their own exclusion. 

Rather than viewing people experiencing exclusion as sheep in need of a firm hand or a guide of a strong voice in front, we are all invited to learn that it is the people who call us. If we want to be attentive to Christ Crucified we need look no future than the faces of the people who are left our and pushed out. Christ speaks to us through the marginalized, in a deeply incarnational echo of his COME, FOLLOW ME they say - come with us, be our companions.