Suddenly my summer garden has become lush and over-abundant. Nine-foot-high butterfly bushes bending with the weight of their purple blossoms, the late blooming hostas, towering jasmine vines, black-eyed Susans brightly appearing in new places, knockout roses in full bloom and still budding, and a veritable jungle of ferns. I go outside early for quiet time and am hushed by so much beauty and fragrance. And activity. What happened this summer that there are so many more bumblebees, monarch butterflies, hummingbird moths, black swallowtails? As I sit in my chair, there is a symphony of wings.
These wings whisper to me of transformation and transition. It is happening for me around call. I will be focusing more on retreats and letting go of some program leadership at Shalem in the next year. These are clear, specific shifts. Yet the whispering wings speak to me of more. I have hints of a deeper shift and a beckoning, however mysterious, of alluring Love. Most of all, the grace of new awareness dawning.
Jesus’ experience with the Syrophoenician mother in this week’s Gospel* encourages me. It is an unusual story about him because he experiences a critical shift in his awareness. Because she is a Gentile, he harshly refuses her request to heal her daughter. He actually insults her. Yet she persists and counters his insult. Then Jesus changes his mind.
Jesus became more divinely human by letting go of a narrow way of seeing. Once that happened, his healing energies flowed more freely. His categories broke open. He healed the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter. From then on, Jesus’ ministry opened, expanding beyond the Jewish community.
This encounter also illustrates how both Jesus and the woman are penetrated by the healing power of transforming Love. Both are examples of humility and truth demolishing attachments to restrictive limitations. Both testify to the importance of detachment from boundaries. By grace, their awareness expanded, opening more fully to the boundaryless power of the Merciful One. As is so often true in the stories of Jesus, both sides leave the encounter strengthened, healed, exploring a new path of hope.
I have a deep sense of divine healing energies at work in this difficult pandemic time. So many speak of boundaries breaking open, of experiencing new awareness of being a global community, new awareness of oneness with creation, new awareness of racial and economic injustice. And I pray that our demons are being exorcised, with or without our knowing, opening a new path for hope.
–Ann Dean, Dayspring Church
Reflection Questions
- Do you have a sense of a new beckoning in your call?
- Are you aware of any attachment which impedes a truer way of seeing?
- What prayer practice is most meaningful to you now?
