What do you see?

I feel like the most insecure person on the planet.  Yet I have no doubt, that most people feel the same way...it's that we all just get better as disguising it...accepting it, befriending it, letting go of letting it bother us. 
As I was working my way through a meditation yesterday, reflecting on it now, I realize again how complex we are, how simple we are...and how deeply connected we are. I realized again the 'idea' of God...and how important it is to us human beings that we have an idea of God. 

Reading Marin Buber this morning, I found myself in a passage reflecting on the Hasadim....which I wonder if Jesus had access to...because I kept finding myself thinking, if Jesus was reading these things, absorbing them...it is easier to see how He came up with the "I am" sayings in the Gospel of John. I could just feel Him taking these stories...and taking them deeper...so that we might identify more clearly with the Divine and thus, perhaps, behave in a like manner. 

Buber tells a story about prayer, in which the word "Father" is used instead of the word God.  When praying before we go to sleep, how do we address the divine? 
"Protect us, Lord, as we stay awake. Watch over us as we sleep. That awake, we may keep watch with Christ, and asleep, rest in His peace."  I love those last words before "shutting down."  Yet I look at those words again:

Protect us, Father, as we stay awake. Watch over us as we sleep. That awake, we may keep watch with our (brother, sister, wife, child) and asleep rest in [their] peace. 

Not going to argue here about the political correctness of the above statement, but it suggests to me, an examination of what we ask for, and what we believe. 

My question during the meditation was always, "What do you see?" For me, the word "see" was colloquial...encompassing all the senses.  And then I said it, "In Catholicism, we are asked to use ALL our senses in our prayer life."  And by saying that to the woman, I was consecrated to those words: using all of my senses in my prayer life.

And without completely understanding it, all the personal internal bitching I had done because I felt so uncomfortable with certain aspects of my own work...I was called again into a real communion with God, which includes all of my sisters and brothers...and all of our quirks and confusions and our gifts and graces.

Nothing ever really runs smoothly, or linearly. I had someone tell me, that, in our sitting together, she had her "answer" in the first 15 minutes. I speak of that because, it was certainly not me that was particularly wise or insightful...but the activity of being in communion with another released an unknown [terror] in us both...[and not the same terror, of course!]

We do what we do, but we do not know what we do.  This works for good and for bad, depending always on what we see.

The little parable about the new town: if you see goodness, you will find goodness there.  If you see terror, you will find terror there. It's still the same town. How you live there depends on what you see.  To hell with facts and science, they don't matter if you cannot see...

Poor blind Bartimaeus! Yet his faith saved him.

You assume I love you because it is what you want to see. That can be a good thing and that can be a bad thing, depending on what you see.  I cannot change your perception and you must respond faithfully to what you see. I am simply here, offering a form of love...the love that was given to me by God. How you choose to receive that love...is entirely your story. 
I can cloud a gift from you by my unforgiveness. I can look for treachery and manipulation and find it. I can search for a motive and offer a biological interpretation to keep my from engaging a potential good gift from God, but I cannot make you do anything you do not want to do.  

So I ask you again: What do you see? 

And that...is your life.

Love, Cindy