new year 2017: according to my own lights

Such flimsy representations 

of the crossover of things.

What comes here to awaken us.

But I believe it could be anything.

Some crazy woman in the subway

could be the chance

to be reconciled to the shapeliness

of one's own being.

from 'I wish I could believe'

Linda Gregg

‘The shapelinesss of one’s own being’ seems such an evocative phrase, and it makes me question my own authenticity - which seems an apposite question for the turning of the year.  What is my shape? And can I hold it in the face of the unknown things to come in 2017?

I know part of my becoming the woman God longs for me to be is dependent on how vulnerable I am willing to be - publicly as well as privately.   God beckons me.  The more I open myself up to the risks of failure and censure and derision, the more I open myself up to the possibility of connection and relationship and beholding. 

Throughout Advent I have explored the idea that where I put my focus is a choice, and come to the understanding that this is my desire: I choose to focus on reciprocity. I keep returning to these words of Henri Nouwen,

Every time there are losses, there are choices to be made.  You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let those losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.

Whatever challenges might confront me in the coming year, I choose to believe, as the Psalmist did, that abundant goodness awaits

for those who take refuge in You in the sight of everyone 

(Psalm 31.19).

My real shape fits Your refuge.  

All my multitudinous creative lights may shine through at once, for all to see, when I am in this hidden, transparent place where I was created to fit.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.

‘God Knows’

Minnie Louise Hawkins

light layers.  Canon 7D. f5.6. 1/15. ISO 2500.