Thresholds Part I
Hello to all of you that follow us, thank you for being part of our community.
In this post I would like to share some of my journey as we pass from 2020 into 2021.
What I am learning from some of the mystics and their process, is to remain on a ‘threshold’ of any given time or season and not move too quickly through it into another new doorway. Now, I do understand that many of us want to brush the dust or snow off of our feet and say, ‘good riddance’ to a bad year. Slam the door on it even.
However in light of pausing on this threshold, what can I take from 2020 that has been of benefit?
One of the gifts of the past year was the whole Christmas season. With help from an elf or two, we got the house decorated the second last week of November. With all the accoutrements in place, I was determined to bask in the riches of the season and for me part of it is the lights and the carols. I have said to some of you before, that as I age, the Christmas carols have taken on a deeper resonance. This year was no exception. Every carol that talked about His incarnation (more on that in another blog) or His abiding in us resonated even more than ever. In fact, this morning I found myself singing in my spirit some of the lines from Oh Little Town of Bethlehem. “Oh come to us, abide in us, our Lord, Emmanuel”
The abiding presence of Emmanuel (God with us), in us. What if we were to get quiet and ponder that reality as we move into 2021? This year where not only can we not see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, we don’t know what new train of potential hardships might be coming our way.
Here are a few definitions of the word abiding: ‘to bear patiently’, ‘enduring’, ‘continuing without change’. The Collins dictionary says this when using abiding as an adjective, “an abiding feeling, memory or interest, is one that you have had for a very long time.”
Keep this in mind as I share one more thing that I want to take with me into 2021.
Many of us learned to slow down this past year. We couldn’t go anywhere for quite some time. Early on in the pandemic, a witty one I know posted this on FaceBook, “My car is getting one month to the gallon these days!” Slowing down allows for us to get in touch with what we have sometimes lost sight of. We can remember what we have forgotten when we pause for a while. Case in point, when I am in the middle of a task and cannot remember what it is, I am meant to be looking for or even doing, I can walk back into the room I came from, pause and voila…in the stopping, I remember. “That is what I was looking for!”
Pausing and abiding in His presence however many times a day is needed, is I think, one very good way to ground ourselves IN Him. Many of us are familiar with the scripture from Acts 17:28, “in Him we live and move and have our being”.
Dr. Brian Simmons in the Passion translation says it this way. “It is through him that we live and function and have our identity; just as your own poets have said, ‘Our lineage comes from him.’
Pause for a moment and ponder this footnote in the Passion Translation: Acts 17:28 Or “Our nature comes from him,” as translated from the Aramaic. The Greek is “We are his offspring.” The Greek word is genos, which means “kindred” or “family” (taken from his genes).
Now, what would happen in any given day if we were to pause and think of this? Our nature comes from Him. We are His offspring, His kindred, taken from His genes. If we find ourselves out of sorts, anxious, angry or overwhelmed with life as we know it, one very good practice is to go to the abiding place and remind ourselves whose presence we carry.
