I did not have a carefree childhood. Rather, it was this knowledge that today I am here, tomorrow I may not be here. I have always been a fan of reality. Reality is extraordinary. The closer you study reality, the more it yields to something completely other, almost a type of alchemy. You can’t control this. You can’t say when it will come to you. Painting for me is a process of self-acceptance – you have to be true to yourself. If you emulate anyone else, you have nothing. Accepting yourself is the great challenge. It’s very difficult to accept yourself.
Patrice Moor
The kingdom of heaven is like a jeweller on the lookout for the finest pearls. When he found a pearl more beautiful and valuable than any jewel he had ever seen, the jeweller sold all he had and bought that pearl, his pearl of great price. (Matthew 13:45-46, The Voice)
Several years ago a friend came to me after she had been on retreat at Lee Abbey and, handing me a pearl from an old necklace, told me, ‘God says to you Katie, you are my pearl of great price.’
I am still digesting that awe-inspiring, utterly head-confounding sentence. It is almost the opposite of what the Matthew passage above seems to be about.
Yet part of pondering treasure in silence and in solitude is that the very act of treasuring is realising it works both ways.
I may not yet have obeyed the urge to ‘sell all I have’ in material terms; but by my listening and by my seeing I am trying to obey the urge to pursue God’s Love, Presence and the action of the Holy Spirit within, as being more important than anything else in my life.
But in order not to devalue the Pearl completely, I have to remind myself over and again that God desires my internal treasuring to lead to a broader, deeper, richer ‘understanding of what holiness really looks like … the spiritual and moral strength to do what needs to be done, to make life better for those who are in need around us.’ (Joan Chittister, God’s Holy Light)
So today’s alchemical reality is that I am here, trying to believe I am loved and longing to love in return: ‘inwards’, ‘upwards’, and ‘outwards’.
There will always be voices that promise you greatness and glory:
They call out from the worldly marketplace;
They call out from the spiritual marketplace;
They call out from the fill-your-holes-marketplace;
They call out from the bigger-better-more marketplace.
Do not buy their false promises, or purchase their ephemeral wares;
What fulfills for a moment is not worth the price of your soul.
There are heights that will lift you, but not when you try to ascend them;
There are powers that will fill you, but not when you make them your own.
There are treasures, and there are imitations of treasures.
If you have lost your true gold, at least turn away from the glitter.
Want only what is true.
This will lead you to the well of your deepest sorrows.
Follow that passageway, all the way down;
Become the dark emptiness of your absent core.
Be still. Don’t measure the waiting.
Be still. Let the waiting become a fire.
Be still. Let the fire show you its secret heart:
A strand of clear light running through you.
Gather yourself there, and the luminous universe opens.
In that vast expanse, fathomless, infinite ocean of light,
Lose yourself, and find yourself, and become what you already are.
‘Renunciation’
Jennifer Wellwood
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