Tonnau Duw ('God's waves') Fr Tim Ardouin

Almighty God, you alone can bring order to the unruly wills and passions of sinful humanity:  give your people grace so to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that, among the many changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found…                                       Collect                

Russia and China on one side, the West on the other. In the middle, Ukraine waits, some looking East for their hope of belonging and others to the West and a bank-pin system named “Freedom”. Empires ancient and modern preen and pose, pumping out the chest, snarling each, “I am the righteous; I will bring order and justice to this chaotic gabble of ideologies you call civilization!” Oh God, awaken your people to open the hearts of the lost. Let Love reign. Let Love rain.

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.                                 Jeremiah 17.7-8   

 In the morning and in the evening, the trusting ones sit, feet on the earth, posture straight, rooting, still, following the breath, “I breathe in,” comes the mantra, “and I know I’m breathing in; I breathe out and I know I’m breathing out. Here I am, present to what is, present to the Living God who is always here and now.” In this way, when fear rises and dryness comes, they do not lose heart. What threatens to overwhelm loses its power, attachment to consolation fades. What remains is the tree and the water, and the leaves of the faithful are green.

Blessed are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked,  nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the assembly of the scornful.  Their delight is in the law of the Lord and they meditate on his law day and night.    

                                                                             Psalm 1.1,2

The faithful are not swayed by argument or threat, no partisan politics nor nationalistic racism. They do not exclude the refugee at their gate, nor discriminate according to privilege or class. The people of God listen to one Voice, the vibration of Beginningness, the Genesis sound, the life-breathing Word that was and is and always will be. In meditation together your tribes become one people, one beating heart, one life and a healing presence in your world.

He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

                                                          Luke 6.17-19

Down to the level place, like water from the mountains to the sea, comes the Master. Here, everyone is equal, just as God created us. Born naked, the baby knows nothing of wealth or poverty, captivity or freedom, communism or fascism, monarchy or democracy, theocrat or atheist, envy or hate. The baby gazes into eyes of mother, or other. “Love is all,” is all the eyes of the new-born seem to say, “Love me as I love you”.

Here on the level place, Christ waits for all. “Blessed are you,” he says, “who know yourselves”. Go in peace and love in the world until at last the world…loves…too.

~ by Fr Tim Ardouin on February 8, 2022.

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