St Mary's

TOTALLY LIBERATED CATHOLIC
Mark4: 35-4
I love this Gospel story for so many reasons; it is full of apt metaphors and guideposts for living our lives.

It starts  ”With the coming of evening, leaving the crowds, the disciples get into a boat with Jesus to cross to the other side, and while they are crossing a huge storm blows up and the boat is almost swamped.”

Its amazing how often that it is in the dead of night, when one is all alone with one’s thoughts, that things that would in the light of day seem unimportant, take on an importance and significance, they do not deserve, often we spend the night in deep worry and anxiety, tossing and turning, but in the light of day, we wonder how we spent a whole night worrying about something so insignificant.

I am reminded of the Leunig cartoon, with a man going to bed with these thoughts that concern him, in his dreams they form from being this tiny fish into a huge whale that chases him and eventually consumes him, but then in the morning it turns once again into a tiny fish, a sardine on his plate which he has for breakfast.

Some how alone with our thoughts, (and it is interesting in the gospel story it starts with leaving the crowds behind,) alone with our thoughts, they can turn into something so huge, so all consuming that we get lost and over whelmed, like the disciples in the boat, with the huge storm on the lake, and massive waves threatening to swamp the boat.

Lost in the world of our thoughts, our stories about how the world is, and our understanding of reality, we can easily be lost, swamped and overwhelmed.

The Gospel story gives us a way out.

The disciples turn towards Jesus, they awaken the sleeping Christ in the boat, thus awakening the divine within.

The storms, the thoughts that threaten to over them are calmed and all is well again.

That within us at all times is the awakened presence, is the AWARE SELF (the true self), but we allow, for what ever reason, this self to fall asleep.

Buddhists and many of the mystical religious traditions speak of being awakened.

We can do this they say by moving into a state of mindfulness, living our lives fully aware, fully present to the moment, living in the NOW.

Moving away from a thought infested mind, to a felt oneness with Being where a sense of presence to oneself, and presence to the world around take precedence, not the world of our minds, and not our stories about the world around us, our view points (as one enlightened person called our often thought invested interior world.)

To see these points for what they are, our point of view, simply a point from which one views reality. The invitation from the gospel is to let go and to

Rest in awareness or Rest as Awareness

As Candice O’Denver, a teacher in living Awareness describes this way of living. One of the ways she likened it to, (and it stays with me) old people who bask out in the sun, she says, you know how old people can forget everything,

nothing more to do,

no plans or action to undertake,

nothing to think about.

The past doesn’t even exist

the future, what’s that?

The warmth of being so natural, completely at ease.

All the struggle and turmoil forgotten,

nothing urgent, nothing important

completely at ease.

This is the way to live our lives, / Resting / Out of our mind and thought infested worlds and simply resting in Awareness.
The gospel story is very much a moving away from the Old Testament, the Elsewhere God who rewards and punishes, who creates fear and trepidation,

the God, who demands to be pleased. The move in the gospel is

to the God of Jesus, the New Testament God,

the Everywhere God,

a Divine presence infused in every aspect of life.

The invitation, is one of simply opening ourselves up to the wonder of every moment,

And we do that best when we rest as Awareness, when we stop the thoughts, the storms which brew in our crowded minds, which threatened to swamp our small boats, our thought – infested lives and Rest in Awareness – in the Awakened Presence.

Again from the wonderful Michael Leunig’s(pg 136) summary, is a stance from which we can live our lives:

I will finish with him

It is the Leunig story about the man who goes out and digs a hugh hole to place his soul with in.

“LOVE IS THE SOURCE

JOY IS THE POWER

LIFE IS THE CELEBRATION”

“LET IT GO, LET IT OUT.

LET IT ALL UNRAVEL.

LET IT FREE AND IT CAN BE

A PATH ON WHICH TO TRAVEL”