Womb Work

In Genesis we learn that out of the womb of darkness and chaos God birthed Creation.  Out of the womb of the ark, new life began after the flood.  Out of the womb of the great fish Jonah was given a new opportunity for life.

So out of our inner spiritual womb God wants to bring a unique Creation that only we can experience–His own holiness, placed within us before our birth.

In one sense Mary represents a part of each of us–the Virgin Womb–our Spiritual Womb–unused, undisturbed, unfulfilled–awaiting the planting of the spiritual seed–the seed of conscious insemination–our conscious desire for something new to be born in us.

God was preparing Mary’s heart long before the angel came to ask permission to plant the seed within her.  God has been doing the same with us.  And the message is the same! ‘Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’  Each of us is God’s favored one, his special, precious Child, to whom and in whom he wants to communicate great joy.

The physical is always a symbol for the spiritual.  What we need is a spiritual frame of mind to perceive it.  The physical rite of passage from virgin to initiated participant in sexual enjoyment–the fullest possible expression of human physical joy–gives us a clue to the kind of spiritual ecstasy God wants us to experience on a spiritual level.

This spiritual pregnancy is a different kind of pregnancy.  Many biological children are conceived accidentally.  Not so in our spiritual virgin womb.  This conception can only occur intentionally–where our conscious gives permission to have the seed of new life planted.  Our conscious will not only must want new life but must give permission for the incubation period to be as long or as short as needed, and for the birth to take place wherever it chooses.

This is not a nine-month pregnancy.  The gestation period varies with each individual. And birth does not take place in a hospital labor room.  It may take place in your own home, on a trip, or in a distant place.  Your spiritual birthplace can be anywhere.  Your womb will know the time and the place.  You may be, in fact, already on the road to Bethlehem.  I hope so.

 

Your Kingdom

The Magi had been informed in their study that a new king would be born in their lifetime and a special star would appear in the heavens to indicate the birthplace.  They waited and watched until they saw the star.

We are kings of our own kingdom, rulers of individual realm.  We are not watching for a star because we’re not interested in a new king.  We don’t want any competition for our throne.

But sometimes when we’re most introspective, we realize we would like something new and wonderful happening in our lives—we’re not sure what but something that will give us a kind of joy we haven’t experienced in a long time.

We need not look for a star in the heavens.  Our sign is within us, beckoning us to the manger deep in our weary spirits, lighting the way for our conscious awareness to see something new, waiting for us to arrive so the new birth can be witnessed and celebrated.

Don’t be afraid to follow your sign to the place where only you can be reborn.  All you need to do is give permission for the new king, your own benevolent monarch, to be born in you—to give you peace, to make you a co-creator with God in establishing a new kingdom of justice and love.

Hurry!  The world needs the new you!

Ann Glover O’Dell

January 2018

Your New Name

God wants to rename you.  God wants your name to be Emmanuel.  In your heart of hearts God wants you to be able to rename yourself.  And the only way you can authentically give yourself that name Emmanuel is to experience God within you—to such an extent that you know beyond doubt that God is with you and within you.

The Jesus story is our story—the story of each of us as God’s holy child, born to testify to the love and grace of God.  Jesus came to testify to who God is and who we are.  Jesus’ life story showed us the love of God and the divinity as well as humanity within every human being.

Isaiah is your prophet!  He is predicting all the names that will belong to you once your godchild is born in you.

Wonderful Counselor—you will be able to counsel others on how to connect with their Inner Wisdom—on how to participate in the birth of their own godchild.  What a gift that will be that you will have to give others.

Prince of Peace—you will find a kind of peacefulness in your personality that will make you a new person.  And the peacefulness that you experience will be evident to others who will want to know how you obtained it.  You will have opportunities to help others to become peaceful people.

Emmanuel—God with us.  That will be your most important spiritual name.  It means God is with you and you are able to be with others in new and loving ways.  You will be God’s representative to those with whom you come in contact.  You will be able to rejoice with those who are rejoicing without envy over whatever has happened to them to cause them to be joyful.  You will be able to grieve with those who are in sorrow without losing your balance.  You will be able to be compassionate to those who need comfort, encouragement, and guidance without trying to control them.  You finally will be able to be your genuine, original self, full of grace and love, God’s child.

Ann Glover O’Dell

December 2018

 

Godchild

What a beautiful word.  Godchild is primarily a term given to an individual, a young child, whose spiritual life we agree to take responsibility for (and sometimes to become legal guardian of in case of parents’ death). The term suggests a reminder that this individual is God’s child whose spiritual as well as physical being is unique and special.

What about our own inner godchild?  That’s the part of us that God wants us to find and watch over.

God imprinted us at our beginning with his image—indelibly. Frederick Buechner reminds us that we have “the mark of God’s thumb” on us.  The world has covered it with debris of all sorts.  But the imprint never dissolves or disappears.  Just as all mammal infants experience the imprimatur of bonding, our souls are permanently bonded with God.

Our task is to let God destroy the debris, the detritus of our lives, so that what is in our holy place can come forward—so our godchild can emerge and become the motivating force of our new lives, become the all-pervasive essential characteristic in our personality.

What a perfect time Christmas is to ponder our own holiness.

Ann Glover O’Dell

June 2018

Wisdom

Wisdom is seeing within/beyond the facts of visible reality.  Children are wise because they live within the truth that will be hidden once they become part of the duality of the world.

We adults become wise as we rediscover where we were, who we were, what we knew.

Our task is to bring the duality of our world into unity—head and heart, thinking and feeling, will and imagination.  We have an Inner Wisdom ready to assist us in that task.  We just need to be open to it.

Ann Glover O’Dell

12 August 2007

Wrestling Blessing

The story of Jacob and the angel he wrestled with during the night is an intriguing one.  In an ancient Jewish version of the story the angel asks Jacob for a blessing, not the other way around.  Perhaps this indicates that they blessed each other.

Jacob is between what we know of ourselves and the other Self we don’t know.  Each has a blessing for the other.  Each is a blessing for the other.  Wrestling each with each, determined not to release until the blessing wrested and fully given, reveals the name of one (I Am) and changes the name of the other.

Perhaps the wrestling matches in our lives hold potential for blessing both ways.  Just as the struggle provides a blessing for our personality, our participating in the struggle may provide a blessing that reaches out into the world.

Ann Glover O’Dell

8 August 2007

Being vs. Doing

I once heard a convincing sermon on being vs. doing. The emphasis centered on man having been created as a human being first and foremost, not a human doing.  We often move through life with the attitude that we must do in order to justify our existence.  That was certainly my M.O.

A friend who is a practicing Christian told me once that guilt was his primary motivating force.  That without guilt he wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning.

Is the God we worship a god who capitalizes on guilt and coercion to influence his children?  I know this to be untrue.  God is rather nudging us from deep inside in a different direction.

Since the essence of God is love, compassion, and presence, it is impossible for Him to try to influence from negative motives.

Man as well as all the rest of creation was pronounced good.  Man, in fact, was labeled very good.  So where did this sick mentality come from that says we are only as good as the good that we do?  that we are only good as we produce?

I suggest that mentality comes from what might be called our antichrist—the consciousness that has been separated from our spiritual source.  Let us reconnect with our Center, our goodness, our Self.

Ann G. O’Dell

28 July 2015

God’s Questions

God’s ultimate questions to us are of being—not questions of knowing and especially not questions of doing.

His question to Adam and Eve about location (“Where are you?”) has greater bearing, not on the bushes they were hiding in, but rather where they were in relationship to Him.

Where are you spiritually?  Where are you in relation to your real Self—which is, after all, God-within-you?

Elijah flees for his life after Jezebel promises to kill him.  Then he decides he is no better than his fathers and tells God he is ready to die.  God tells Elijah to stand before Him on the mount.  And a great wind came and an earthquake and a fire.  But God was not in the wind or earthquake or fire.  And after the fire came a still small voice.  We, too, seek a knowing in a still small voice.

God directs us through the psalmist to “be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).  Notice the need to be still in order to know.  When we know God, we come to know ourselves and the divinity in our being.  We come to know that our being in relationship with God is his greatest desire.

Ann Glover O’Dell

June 2018

Garbage Collectors

I believe we are garbage collectors.  No, we don’t deposit in a dumpster or a landfill.  We don’t even use a trash compactor.  We hold on to it and let it multiply.

A friend who is a committed Christian says he needs guilt in order to get out of bed in the mornings.  He says guilt is his biggest motivator.  Another friend tells me she is attached to her sins and can’t imagine letting them go.

One of my sons as a little boy announced he wanted to become a garbage collector because that was something everyone needed.  On a spiritual level that is what God is (among other things).  A garbage collector.  But He doesn’t steal our garbage from us.  He waits for us to offer it up.  He waits for us to want Him to collect and destroy it.

What would life be without our garbage?  We can hardly imagine.  A heavy burden lifted?  a sense of freedom?  A clean slate?

In the enormous space our garbage occupied will come laughter, peacefulness, creativity, and joy.  And if we miss our guilt and anger and want it back, God will probably help us conjure it up.

Ann Glover O’Dell

20 September 2018

Challenge

Someone disagrees with my conviction that under the skin we are all much alike: we have the same fears, the same shame, the same anger, the same existential angst.

Further, I am certain that each of us has an Inner Wisdom, a force for good that wills us wholeness and can give us blessings we cannot give ourselves.  This Inner Wisdom is available to all of us in dialogue.

I challenge you readers to prove me right or wrong.  First, let me say that the folks I know who have engaged their Inner Wisdom are glad they did.  Two I know who had cancer found the cancer no longer remained the hated enemy but actually disappeared.  My own debilitating illness was also healed.

The dialogue with your Inner Wisdom is not a courageous act, not a leap of faith, not surrender.  Your free will is never compromised.  It is an interview—questions and answers.  Your rational conscious self is in charge at all times and you can end the conversation whenever you wish.

Begin the written conversation with a question, keeping in mind that your Inner wisdom is concerned with your spiritual and physical well-being, not with tangible things you might want.

The first response from your Inner Wisdom might be, “What do you think?” and that simple question may very well cause your mind to begin thinking in a whole new way about something you thought you had exhausted.

As the dialogue continues, you may find there is something your Inner Wisdom can do for you that you cannot consciously do for yourself.  And all it needs is your permission—your unconditional permission to do its work in its own way in its own time.  You decide whether to give that needed permission.

If you do, save your written interview as proof positive later on when you want to demonstrate to others that you initiated something that changed your life.

If you give permission for your Inner Wisdom to act on your behalf, eventually I predict a catharsis will occur in your life, washing away whatever has kept you from experienced your real Self.  And I hope you will report to me so I will be proved right.

Ann Glover O’Dell

7 July 2018

The Secret

Throughout the Psalms the writers entreat God to take away their sin.  And through the prophets God tells his people he will take their sin away.  So what does that have to do with us today?  Is anybody asking God to remove his sin, and does God’s promise still hold?

Many wonder if God desires to be active in the lives of mankind since few examples are seen.  I argue that once we remember the secret and act on it, we can be recipients of the sin-dissolving grace of God.  Remember the prophets who engaged in conversation with God?  Especially the one who looked for God in the storm and whirlwind but found him in the still small voice?  And Samuel who heard God calling his name in the night?  And look at the example Jesus gave, repeatedly going to a quiet place to commune with his Father.

And Gethsemane.  We have only one part of the conversation but we can imagine that God was making himself heard in that exchange.  God’s secret, which is described throughout scripture, is the spiritual conversation God wants to have with us in order to initiate the cleansing we need.

Our free will is as important to God as his love for us.  He will not override the will he has given us.  Instead, he waits for our permission to do what is necessary to wash away all that is blocking us from joyful relationship with him.  Our participation in God’s salvific act is what is required.

It is up to us to initiate the dialog that will give us the confidence in God’s power so that we will give the important permission.  Take paper and pencil and begin with a question.  You are always in control.

Ann Glover O’Dell

6 August 2018

What to Do About Garbage

We know what to do with our domestic garbage: set it on the curb at the appointed time and sanitation workers will take it away.  What about our internal garbage—the kind that seems to increase no matter our attempts at removal?

Perhaps we think we haven’t yet exhausted all our ideas for removing the debilitating mess of resentment and unresolved grief inside us.  Perhaps we think our angry tapes will simply self-destruct if we have enough patience.  Perhaps we’re practicing detachment from our guilt and shame and hoping that will work.

The truth is we cannot by our own power rid ourselves of what has come between us and the Kingdom of God.  We cannot set out on our spiritual curb a container of what separates us from the peace of God.  Our spiritual garbage is none other than what scripture refers to as sin.

The psalmist declares that once God washes us, we become whiter than snow.  The psalmist does not declare, however, that we are able to wash ourselves.  If we were able to cleanse ourselves of our spiritual garbage, we might decide we had no need of God.  God wants us to need him to effect the miracle of cleansing and transformation.  And God wants us to participate in that miracle.

Ann Glover O’Dell

6 august 2018

 

Your Inner Wisdom Awaits You

Your Inner Wisdom awaits your engagement.  Whatever you choose to call it—Guardian Angel, God, Higher Power, Holy Spirit, it is that secret inner part of your personality.  The creative part.  The part that cannot be controlled by your conscious willful self.

Your Inner Wisdom is a force that can do for you what you cannot do for yourself–make you into your original self.  It is always a force for good.  It wants health and wholeness for you and can give that to you if you cooperate.

Your cooperation is required in the form of giving your Inner Wisdom permission to do whatever needs to be done in you to make room for the goodness it has to give you.

You can glibly say to yourself, “Sure, I give permission for something good to happen to me.”

But that is not enough.  In a written dialog you need to converse with your Inner Wisdom until you realize you want a new life with all of your conscious might.  And you need to discover that your Inner Wisdom is a benevolent force.  Then the permission becomes authentic.

You are always in control of the conversation.  And can stop it at any time.  There is no coercion. Your free will is left intact.  The conversation is not surrender, a leap of faith, a courageous act.  It is a dialog—questions and answers.  Begin with any question and listen for a response from deep within you.

You are on your way to experiencing God’s special miracle for you.

Room for a Baby

Sometimes babies are born in the most unusual places: a subway station, the back seat of a taxi, the corner of a crowded restaurant.  We never know where a baby might choose to make his appearance into the world.

The pregnant mother makes all possible preparations, packs a little suitcase for her trip to the hospital, or lays out all that will be needed when the midwife arrives.  A little nursery is made ready, a place for the infant to lie safe and warm.  If there are available funds, colorful decorations are hung to attract the infant once his eyes are able to focus.

But all the time no one knows exactly when the baby will decide to be born—or how much in a hurry he will be to get here.  Sometimes the mother has no time to travel to the clinic or wait for the midwife.  She is not able to make the baby postpone his appearance but rather must cooperate with this child who is eager to become a citizen of this earthly kingdom.  Babies generally have their own time-table and will not be thwarted in their determination.

The godchild within us is indeed one of those with a birthing mind of its own.  We absolutely cannot predict when God will bring our transformed spirit into our conscious awareness.  It is God’s secret, meant to reinforce his design and determination to have his way, to act on his own time schedule.  And it matters not whether we have made any preparations at all.  In fact, our ability to make any preparations is highly unlikely.  This birth is God’s surprise for us, the best Christmas gift ever, whether it comes on December 25 or any of the other 364 days available.

Ann Glover O’Dell

18 December 2017

Prophesy and Reality

The prophesy and the Nativity story both give significant clues as to God’s intention and activity.  The prophets talk of something new emerging from something old, of a culture where all animals live peaceably together with no danger to humans; of the appearance of one who manifests characteristics of Almighty God himself.  The foretelling emphasizes the determination of God to make this happen and the energy He will use to bring this about.

Furthermore, God’s design, energy, and essence are to be known throughout the earth by all.  The birth narrative confirms prophesy and impresses on reader/hearer alike that the new being is conceived and nurtured by none other than the indomitable will of God.

Are we ready to see that both prophesy and Nativity story are what we want to claim for our own?  Not simply a belief system but rather transformative agents in our individual lives?  If we want that it can be ours.

Do we feel old in our spirits and want a new beginning?  Are we weary of all the conflict in our lives?  Do we yearn for a peace that passes understanding?  Are we ready to encounter the prophetic voice deep within us, to dialog with it to learn if it has a special annunciation message for us?  If so, become the scribe of your own wise messenger.  Ask a question and write the reply.  Allow your Inner Wisdom to give you the information you need so that you may, as did Mary, agree to cooperate with the process.

Ann Glover O’Dell

18 December 2017

Be!

When God’s voice said, “Be!”

and all the guilt and anger in me vanished

I began to know as I am known—

to understand in deepest heart

that what our mind has told us we must do

can never be divine directives

because our mind attempts to be God,

not listening for his holy will.

When God said, “Be!”

He gave me new relationship

where tasting, feeling, sensing

takes precedence to thinking and deciding.

When God told me to be

I became a born again as Jesus once described

those apprehending life’s abundance.

 

Ann Glover O’Dell

20 November 2017

To Hell and Back

John Noonan says religion is for people who are trying to keep from going to hell and spirituality if for people who have been there and who don’t want to go back.

In order for us to be in intimate relationship with God, something that is not of God must die within us.  As we witness that death, we experience our own personal hell.  There is no way around it if we would truly know God.

Jesus told his God to work out his will.  Jesus gave permission to whatever would follow.  Jesus cooperated with God’s will.

If a death was necessary for God’s plan to materialize in the life of a man like Jesus, how much more is a death necessary in us.

Ann Glover O’Dell

22 November 2016

Each Day

The rising sun each morning shows us a new opportunity to find a fresh beginning place in ourselves—a clean slate where we can allow the Holy Spirit to write us a love letter.  We may carry fatigue or worry from the previous day, but the Spirit of God, that enormous benevolent energy, wants to give us, above, beyond, under, and through each new day, a fresh glimpse of what it means to be a beloved child of God in whom he takes great delight.

Ann Glover O’Dell

Accessing Creativity!

I’ve been trying to find a way to help children (and adults!) access their creative center in order that they might find what will inspire their spirits and give them passion for living.  I’ve been thinking of creative folks who have found their passion and who might inspire young people to search for their own.

But I’ve had it all wrong!  Creative people as would-be role models might do little more than increase the apathy, rage, and depression already dominating in many youth who may have already despaired of ever finding anything to bring them lasting joy.

The secret is to allow the creative center to express itself in us.  And centering is the means by which we request and cooperate with our creative self which seeks to express itself benevolently and uniquely in every human being.

The quiet time of centering can be called calming time or peace-seeking—a time to detach from thoughts and feelings and relax all consciousness while sitting in a comfortable position.

Choosing a special word that expresses one’s intention is important and should be carefully undertaken.  Invoking that word when the mind begins to wander down the stream-of-conscious will help to keep one focused.  The word can be silently repeated as often as necessary.

Regular daily quiet time is necessary to achieve desired results.  Gradually amazing changes will be noticed in one’s personality.  Exciting ideas will begin to come forth.  Little by little transformation takes place and joyful creativity emerges.  A journal would be a good companion so one can begin to chronicle results.

Transmitters of Energy

Could it be possible that we, as transmitters of the energy of the universe, can enable that energy to multiply as it travels through us?

I like to think so.

First of all, we need to embrace the idea that this energy is a benevolent one, that it seeks our good and the good of all.

Recalling surprising coincidences can begin to show us how that energy can work to make our lives more enjoyable—and give us the desire for more of its miracles.  We may not be able to specifically direct the action of this universal energy, but we can tell it what we want: to be open to its activity within us and its guidance of our choices.

Second, we need to find ways of opening ourselves to its coursing in and through us, ways of inviting it to work its goodness using us as its vehicles.

Soul Moments

May there be each day

in all our lives

some moment when we are called,

nay, brought to the doorway

of our soul’s sanctorum,

where the physical, sloughed off

to reveal the spiritual,

fades for a time in the fog of memory

and our heart’s eyes see

as they have never seen before—

a thin space where truth

waits to be revealed

to the curious and the hungry,

and our heart’s ears hear

the message that only love can bear,

the message that we are beloved.

 

Ann Glover O’Dell

18 September 2017

At The Seashore

At the seashore we ingest a sense of eternity—

the primeval rhythms of the sea against the shore,

the sea as the chaos from which all life came,

the depths of the sea as the mystery of whatever cannot be grasped or

comprehended,

the sea as the mystical power of God.

 

The sea-shore activates our  senses and reminds us afresh of our humanity.

We marvel at the sight of the sea, which has looked the same

to countless generations who have witnessed it before us.

We hear the unrelenting pounding of the waves against the shore, booming

yet calming.

 

We touch the water, the seaweed, the driftwood, and the shells the sea brings

to shore.

We smell the sea, its breeze unlike any other.

We taste its saltiness, full of flavor, full of life, of living creatures.

 

As  our senses sharpen we become aware of the action of the sea:

a constant movement in the ebb and flow of the waves,

a surface that belies an undertow,

the  movement of shells and creatures,

the movement that forces the shells to wear down and break,

the movement that causes friction, shell against shell,

the movement that smooths and polishes,

the movement that makes beautiful

even the fragments.

 

We, too, are worn down by the sands of time and the waves of adversity.

We have been broken by the action of circumstance.

We have become fragmented by the sea of life.

 

As we finger shell fragments, let us be reminded that we are precious to our Creator,

who wants to smooth and polish our rough edges, our painful places,

not to erase our scars but to heal us in a way that gives our scars a

special beauty

and our lives a kind of loveliness that makes others want the healing

we’ve received.

 

Let us submit ourselves to the caress of the sea,

the powerful sea of the Spirit of God,

allowing it to wash away what needs to be washed away,

allowing it to make us fresh and new,

allowing it to smooth and polish and broken fragments of our

lives and make us beautiful again.

 

October 1995

Ann Glover O’Dell

 

LISTENING TO SCRIPTURE

Time and again Jesus instructs his disciples and others in his audience to listen.  “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” Jesus repeats.  We have come to understand that for Scripture to have the greatest impact on our lives, we must ask ourselves, ‘what does it mean to me?’ Where is it touching me most deeply?  Where am I most affected, and perhaps made uncomfortable, by the Scripture passage?

As we ask these questions, we are better able to see how God might be a part of the situation in the text—and my situation as well.  We are invited to have a personal encounter with the verses we choose to read in the Bible, a prelude to the kind of encounter that God wants to have with each of us.

Look again at the parable of the sower and the soils.  Many interpretations have been given of the various kinds of soil, and even the sower and the grain that finally emerges from the good soil.  But this time you are invited to make your own personal interpretation.

Scripture: Matthew 13:3-8

A sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.  Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away.  Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.  Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

Residents of Haven House, a residential treatment center for addition,  were asked to listen carefully as the story was read several times and then share whatever they would of the responses they had and the insights that came to them as they pondered at a deeper level what the story might be saying to them.  All of them related the story to their own stories.

One man noticed that the sower lost a lot of seed but gained a great deal in the end.

Another suggested that we need to plant ourselves around a church family so we don’t wither.

Still another suggested that the thorns in the story represent the wrong people we associate with.

One said it seemed to him that to do good, one has to give up something to gain something else.

Another said we must prepare our heart in a way that we have to prepare soil to receive the good seed.

And finally one said we don’t know how our crop will turn out but we want to be good soil so we can produce a good crop.

What varied and insightful responses!  And all from individuals who chose to listen to Scripture with new ears, and with a heart ready to receive and embrace.

What about you?  I invite you to choose a favorite Bible story and sit with it long enough to let it say new things to you.  I believe you will be enriched by what happens to you.

March 2017

(Note: A number of additional meditations are available on this website under Meditations.)

Ann Glover O’Dell

It’s Our Story!

To see the Jesus narrative as our story does not diminish the life and death of Jesus.  On the contrary, to see ourselves as God’s beloved child, with the capability of engaging in a unique relationship with God, just as Jesus was, can’t help but enrich his story.  To see in the story not only the human/divine nature of Jesus but also the human/divine nature of all human beings is to complete the picture.

Our interest in all classic stories is enhanced by seeing something of ourselves in one or more of the characters.  Both fiction and non-fiction give us opportunities to identify with real or imagined characters, to better  understand ourselves, to see new paths opening up for us, to gain new  tolerance and sensitivity to others’ situations, and to find comfort in sorrow.

The Bible doubles as Christian mythology where larger-than-life characters capture our imagination.  We identify with Abram as he is called to leave familiar surroundings, with Joseph as he is scorned by his siblings, with Jonah as he resents the change of heart that occurs with the Ninevites.  Classic literature and mythology always develop characters who embody some of our own traits.  Otherwise, we could never identify with the tragic heroes as we do.

The soul we credit with belonging to every human being is nothing less than the essence of our divinity, the piece of God planted in each of us, not to give us bragging rights but to give us the abundant life Jesus spoke of, the ability to be the person God begat us to be.

A story presents so many more possibilities if interpreted on multiple levels.  Can we not imagine that God wants us to glean the most possible from the stories told in Scripture?  That God wants us to learn from the stories and characters to understand more about who we are and how He loves us?  Oh, let us imagine greatly!

Seasonally Out of Sorts

We are seasonally out of sorts.

Winter did not come

and spring has usurped summer

o’erleaping gradual emergence

making handsprings of blossom

cancelling whatever June

might have had in mind.

Praise God for liturgically

wedding us to predictable chronology

where Easter follows Lent

regardless of the weather.

And after Resurrection plus five o

praise God again

for giving  feast of fire and air

grounding us afresh on Mother Earth.

Our wings are lifted up

Our spirits fanned to flame

Our breath the breath of God

We see ourselves as burning bush

And repeat our own “I Am.”

 

Ann Glover O’Dell

20 February 2017

The Window of My Mind

I  washed the window of my mind

and sitting on the sill, looked out

for views of inspiration from my muse.

Parades gave me nothing as they passed

and wondered I where else to cast my eyes.

Suddenly a fine wind blew the casement open

and circulated dizzingly within

upsetting applecarts of art work

and opinions collected

during years of trips and education

contributing to theologies tried and true.

This fine wind sifted through it all,

blowing the stale and stagnant

into ingenious incinerators

then distributed assorted rainbows

as it exited toward the sea.

 

Ann Glover O’Dell

13 February 2017

Doxology

Praise to Thee, O Lord, Creator of the Universe,

Who brings forth from your earth womb all life.

Praise to Thee, O God, Sustainer of the Universe,

who gives life the abundance Thou designed for it.

Praise Him who places godhood

in the center of our being.

Blow Holy Spirit, Wayward Wind,

with all thy special power

come stir again the old desire

in us who yearn to flower.

Rain into us the fullness

of the morning dew

made into streams

that penetrate our roots.

Make green the carpet of our days

that we, lured into verdancy,

might sprout new buds

and bloom as never even

once upon a time we dreamed.

Press down upon us sunshine

of the vision in your mind

of who we were and are and yet to be,

always within the firm embrace

of thy mysterious trinity.

Ann Glover O’Dell

30 May 2002

THE ERA OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Many clergy and biblical scholars are busy researching the cultural context of the four Gospels and the source material used. We even have reports, based on serious scholarship, of what Jesus probably did and did not say. Eager readers seem to want to know what is fact and what is fiction in the four accounts of the life of Jesus.

What seems to be ignored is this new era of holiness. Our individual and collective level of conscious awareness has risen to the point where we are ready for something more. Our inner Self yearns for a new manifestation of the Sacred—a personal revelation.

We have moved into the era of the Holy Spirit. An era to complete the other two. An era in which we are not consumed with research into the written word. An era in which the energy and spirit of the universe is available and eager to move in and through us if we but will it. This energy can reveal to us a truth stronger than words, a new reality that cannot be denied, and potential that is eager to be realized.

Let us consciously invite this amazing phenomenon to come to us, abide with us, and use us as instruments of peace, creativity, and joy.