His fear was seemingly transmuted into what we call 'beginner’s mind,' which is what grace always does—it turns our vices into another way to love and serve God’s reality....This ever-rediscovered beginner’s mind, which is a deathlike vulnerability before reality, keeps each of us forever growing and forever young. -- Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, March 21, 2023 (slightly altered)
I have come to love the descriptive "beginner's mind"...it is clearly before we know...and there's the common sense glitch to spiritual growth.
We seek, we study, we ponder, we think, we meditate...which for a long time is just a fancy word for think. All the while our need is the vulnerability of the beginner's mind...open, needing to be filled not by learned words but by inspiration and intuitive grace.
Seeking to become wholly vulnerable is on no one's To-Do list...at best, it's a Should, and, face it, "should" is the skunk in the closet. Who's kidding whom? Vulnerability takes us by surprise, feels less than wonderful...usually embarrassing...and exposes our secret secrets, those even unbeknownst to us.
Yet it is by way of our studying, our meditating, that we are opened to the vulnerability of God's will, God's way. There...vulnerability is God's will, God's way, the beginner's mind, utterly unavailable to self-will as it does what grace always does—it turns our vices into another way to love and serve God’s reality.
Thank you.
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