Exhaling

Why a “conspiracy”?

Because we need a revolution, and revolutions must be planned quietly.

Because we must throw truth in the eye of the lie, but first we must be sure we know what we are throwing, and we know that best when we say these things out loud to one another and share our thoughts and experience (“Where two or three are gathered in My Name…,” even electronically). So we “breathe together” in order to learn, to clarify, to inspire.

(I am a real logophile, and all kinds of poetic thoughts start churning as I consider the etymologies of words, and all their derivations. Right now, I am weaving inspire, aspire, expire, conspire, transpire… perspire?!)

Because “exhaling” connotes “letting go” and surrendering, and we must surrender our own ideas in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit – we must be willing to surrender our entire selves in order to be used by Him. The name of this blog comes partly from the title poem from one of my books. In the poem, I describe my “brush with death,” in which I experienced my own surrender to God’s will in my exhaling – my “letting go” – and found profound peace.

In every moment, the culture is screaming, “TAKE MORE!” and outshouting the silence we need to remember what we are and why we are here. These are the questions that I often pose to people who are seeking something more – What are we? Why are we here? How can we best BE what we ARE?
And if we are only here and now, what is the point? We are only burdensome and loathesome to ourselves. Of course, we are made for more than this, but if we consider our nothingness without Him, all our frantic search for meaning and worth or for an escape for our meaninglessness is seen in stark contrast with our true dignity as creatures loved by Absolute Meaning. But how many know that they are loved? Loved in truth, BY Truth, with the only Love that matters…

This is what I mean by plotting against the nihilism of the day. We will have to chip away at this a little at a time, as we have real lives that take up our time (alas, my time is not my own). But this is a bare beginning.

I am off on a weekend trip as of tomorrow morning, and won’t be back until Tuesday
But I am confident that you all will keep the conversation going and the conspiracy alive!
I may have a minute tonight to check back, God willing. Meanwhile, ti amo!

Gabrielle has me laughing out loud here .

Yes, we are full of cheesecake and antics at the moment. But still. We’re just establishing a baseline of goodwill. We’re not running away from Fr. Dubay (who, by the way, clothed me in my Carmelite scapular) and we will definitely ask St. John of the Cross to be our guide up Mount Carmel, even as we ask St. Teresa to lead us through the mansions of prayer.

More soon. But this is more fun than I usually allow myself.

Prayer for the “Cospirazione delle Contemplative” (why DOES everything sound better in Italian?):

Father,
creator and ruler of heaven and earth,
you made man in your likeness
to subdue the earth and master it,
and to recognize the work of your hands
in created beauty.
Grant that your children,
thus surrounded on all sides by signs of your presence,
may live continually in Christ,
praising you through him and with him.
Amen.

~ from Christian Prayer, Sunday, Week II, Evening Prayer

For me, this sums up what we are about: acknowledging God as Father and Creator; acknowledging the beauty in which we are immersed, as a gift of His love; living a life of thanksgiving and offering this eucharistic attitude through and with Christ, as a continual praise of His glory.

More “unpacking” of this when I have more time.

http://www.stl-ocds.org/

I love my iPod – it’s my favorite way to multi-task – and Gabrielle posted this link over at contemplativehaven .

Someone invite her over here; she would bring something soothing to this conspiracy

Theme song for the
‘Cospirazione delle Contemplative’:

(we’re still about good coffee here)

Inextricably Bound
panem et circenses

So many stanzas whisper like reticent prayers to ourselves;
only the existential lies penetrating our citadels,
the purest lines cloying from age and misuse.
The past is old wineskin and all verity a noose.

Evolution has matured us far beyond comply,
and we’ve subtly outgrown the daily cadence of the sky.
We ignore that we’re merely elements bound by Providence alone
and reduce the blaze of truth to thin blue light or a pile of stone.

We are offended by mercy and too wise to be inspired
by those who live fully immersed in unseen fire;
and if the veil that conceals us should be pierced by their word
we’ll certainly insist a thicker curtain is preferred.

For the mysterious brilliance that certain lives reflect
the murky entrails of our own construct may neatly vivisect.
Seeing what they are, we see what we should be;
slavery is more poignant juxtaposed against the free.

Our match-lit labyrinths of self-indulgence and unreason
masquerade as righteousness both in and out of season.
Sacrifice rings hollow to hearts petrified and lame;
and we’ve been passed a cumbrous ancient torch without its flame.

We are aware that below us churn unstable molten seas
and know we cannot breathe but for the green breath of trees.
Not one of us can escape the gentle force of the full moon
or find shadows to hide us in the intensity of noon.

Still we try to bundle truth up in a grassroots opaque shroud
and then in the fervent madness of the single-minded crowd
shove it all diplomatically to the cliff beyond the privet,
mindless of what we’ll encounter as we freefall with it.

~ from “To Sing You Must Exhale,” available through Lulu

The conspiracy is here. It starts now.

I’m in.
honora is in, and bringing cheesecake. (No cheesecake, no in.)

We need someone to bring coffee, and I’m talking real coffee – no cafe americana. No bilge water. Black gold.

I have a few others to invite.
Do you?

It may be like the blind leading the blind, but the darkness in which we so often fumble is His. And His darkness is, of course, preferable to our own light.

There is no such thing for us as a definitive “YES.”
We must decide again each moment to reach for best,
choosing who we are and what we will become
by remembering where we’re going, and from whence we come.
We must keep consciously choosing to be third,
neighbor being second, and always first, the Word.