Hello friends,
Mark Gladman,
Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monk in doxia.
Welcome back to our series,
Stay Here.
There's times in life when we try really hard to make it work.
And there's a lot of enoughs.
When we do that,
We try to be good enough,
Or patient enough,
Or successful enough,
Maybe even spiritual enough.
There's a lot of fixing.
As well,
We try to fix things,
Or ourselves,
Or other people,
Or try and fix the future.
And I think that's why a lot of us.
Are exhausted.
And you know it,
The feeling of,
I'm trying so hard.
But in John's Gospel,
Chapter 15,
Verse 4,
Jesus uses a very different word.
He says,
Abide.
Abide in me.
As I in you.
Now abide is an old word and it simply means remains.
To stay,
To make your home here.
That pretty much means the gospel.
Is all about not knowing.
Working harder.
So that we can become connected,
Or forcing our way in somehow,
Or trying to find the entrance because it's kind of concealed.
Until we do a certain thing in a certain way at a certain time,
We won't know how to enter in.
He simply says,
Abide in me.
But here's the cool bit.
What comes next.
After abiding me,
He says,
As I abide you.
In you.
So before you do anything,
Before you even think about abiding.
God is already here.
Before you get yourself together and make sure that everything's right,
Your ducks are lined up,
God is already here.
Before you try and become more patient and more loving and more prayerful and whatever else,
God is already here.
And I think that's why trying so hard is just exhausting,
Because we're trying to create something that we're actually being invited to rest in.
And receive.
Trying to create peace and belonging.
And a sense of presence,
We try and become worthy of love and Jesus just says,
Abide.
So take a deep breath in.
And out.
And in this moment,
Just stop trying.
There's no improvement necessary.
Just stay.
Just remain.
Just abide.
Notice you're breathing.
Notice your body.
Notice the room around you.
Let everything be as it is.
And underneath it all,
Hear those words,
I abide in you.
You're not trying to get into the presence of God,
You're already there.
Dead.
Think about a branch on a vine.
The branch doesn't spend its day trying to produce life.
It just remains connected to the vine and the life comes through that connection.
And maybe there's parts of your life where you've been working very hard to produce something,
Maybe peace or love or meaning.
Maybe.
.
.
Today you could loosen your grip on that a little bit.
I'm not talking about giving up or stopping caring,
But maybe just stop forcing.
And simply abide.
Connect.
Remain.
Stay here.
Let's just sit with that for a couple of minutes.
Abide in me.
As I abide in you.
You And if you find yourself trying again,
That's okay.
You don't have to succeed at abiding.
Just notice what's going on and come back to abide in me as I abide in you.
Friend,
You don't need to do more.
You simply need to stay.
Here.
And may grace,
Peace and love be with you.
As you do.
Until tomorrow.
Bye for now.
You
