My Ordinary Life

I have been thinking alot of being useful. One of my favorite songs is "Spirit of the Living God"

Spirit of the Living God, Fall Afresh on Me

Spirit of the Living God, Fall Afresh on Me

Melt me, mold me, fill me, USE me

Spirit of the Living God, Fall Afresh on Me

Yesterday I did Reiki on a man who is blind.  And I prayed fervently for healing for him as I laid hands on him.  I believe that if he received physical healing - it would be to the glory of God.  He would, without a doubt, credit God's healing power.  

And I felt this sense of oneness with all the ways that God heals - that I was part of it praying for this man, just like the doctors who operated and his family who loved him.  That we were all working together to give him hope and love and wholeness regardless of the outcome.  

One of my favorite parables has been about the sower of seeds. 

He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: ³ “Listen! A sower went out to sow. ⁴ And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. ⁶ And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. ⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. ⁸ Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” ⁹ And he said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”

I find myself in this parable everywhere - including as the sower.  That we are all called to sow seeds of love - prodigiously, extravagantly. That is how we are USEFUL - that we can just keep sowing the seeds without worrying about the outcome.  Just doing it.

 
 looked at my daily meditation from Richard Rohr and it just reinforced what I have been experiencing in my life lately. He writes about the second half of life as we move away from ambition and certitude into a "naked faith"

In the second half of the spiritual life, you are not making choices as much as you are being guided, taught, and led--which leads to "choiceless choices." These are the things you cannot not do because they are your destiny and your deepest desire. Your driving motives are no longer money, success, or the approval of others. You have found your sacred dance.

 

Now your only specialness is in being absolutely ordinary and even "choiceless," beyond the strong opinions, needs, preferences, and demands of the first half of life. You do not need your "visions" anymore; you are happily participating in God's vision for you. With that, the wonderful dreaming and the dreamer that we were in our early years have morphed into Someone Else's dream for us. 

  

So I sow seeds of love in a pretty ordinary way - by laying hands on people, praying for them, listening to them, welcoming them, loving them and trust that somehow this is being useful for doing my little part in bringing the kingdom here on earth.  

 

In so many ways, I have learned that I never know what was really important and what "seed" actually took root.  And I don't need to know.  I just sow seeds and trust that in my ordinary life God is using me.

 

May it be so.