I just had an interrupted meditation instant and remembered a long-ago gift. At 6:15 AM, the contractors next door who are in the building process started up all their machines. In my opinion they should not be allowed to start until at least 7:00 AM. Just that thought flashed, and a zillion furious thoughts followed...they could not wait to rush in and take over my meditation.
Fortunately, I remembered my very first guided meditation when the sirens of several fire engines started, seemingly right in the next room. The spiritual director quietly instructed us to fold those sounds in to our meditation, to become one with the sounds so that we could release them in peace. I was unable to do that, but the seed was planted, and that has been my goal with distractions of any kind ever since. Sometimes I succeed better than other times, but it is ever my goal.
Remembering that, I was led to Fr. Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation of May 6, 2012, where he wrote of distractions as a way 'to look over our shoulder' for God: "The 'shoulders' of the distraction become your necessary vantage point and they create the crosshairs of your seeing. What you quickly and humbly learn in contemplation is that how you do anything is how you do everything. [His emphasis.]"
The goal, then, is not to avoid distractions, problems, but to hold onto the distraction, "but not let it hold onto you." A problem is just a distraction in a hair shirt.
We learn early on that we must walk toward our fear. That's all a problem is...a self-centered fear that we give life to by resisting it. What we need to learn is how to hold on to it by giving it over to the Father within...S/He returns it as the peace which passes all understanding.
And our reasoning mind will never understand that. We must go beyond reason to love.
Thank You.
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