Thursday, February 28, 2013

Dwell In Possibility

A World within the Word


What a delight it is to listen to the everyday stories of people for glimpses of God shining through. Often a simple question can open up a whole new world for people. Through this blog, “The World within the Word,” I hope to explore new windows through which to look at the meaning of religious vocation today. This is designed to be an interactive space for you to enter a conversation that wants to happen. Dear Reader, I invite your response as I eagerly await the mystery that will unfold.

“I dwell in possibility”- writes Emily Dickinson and so do we.

Many years ago I attended a special evening at Genesis Spiritual Life Center at which I experienced a process called soul writing. The practice allows us to open our consciousness to the deeper meaning of a word that wants to engage us. You begin by writing the word in the center of a piece of paper and then circle it. Sitting with your word, you let emerge other words that are evoked. Drawing a connecting line from the center to each one, you write what comes to you using as many of the words as you can. Sometimes these words have become prayers for me; other times they have opened up new ways of seeing and other possibilities as to why that particular word surfaced.


As I sit with the word possibility, out radiate the words: new, awesome, pregnant, option, wonder, mystery, maybe, tip toe, selection, choice and possible.

Standing on tiptoe, I peer over the edge of a world disappearing. Maybe some of what has been will come back in a different way. Close to forty years ago our Sisters left St. Joseph’s School in North Adams. I recall someone telling the people that they would return in a new way.


Standing on tiptoe, I peer over the edge of world emerging.
I am in awe at what is appearing. I stand in wonder as I recognize the options that have opened for me. The choices I’ve made have been part of fulfilling that promise. It is mystery to me that I have found new life living and working side by side with and among the dear neighbors living in poverty, as I walk the very streets the early sisters walked. Though I do not resemble them in appearance, I am pregnant with the charism that they carried. This leads me to wonder at what will be born of the lives we are living.


In the next few weeks, our Church hovers in the realm of possibility as we await the selection of the next Pope. Who will the Spirit inspire? Will a new pope invite us to stand together on tiptoe and share what we see as we peer over the edge of our world? What will tomorrow’s sister look like as a result of our choices?

I offer an invitation for us to consciously dwell in possibility these days.

1 comment:

  1. Nancy Welsh submitted the following:

    As I consider the word "possibility" the words that ray out for me are:
    HOPE, HORIZON, BIRTHING, BECKONING, NEW, NECESSARY....
    In Charles Peguy's little gem, "God Speaks,"HOPE is personified as "a tiny girl who wakes up each morning and says her prayers with a new look in her eyes." She, one may say, dwells in possibility.
    It seems to me that, if we truly trust the One who is continually birthing from an "infinite field of all possibilities," there is little room for pessimisim in our hearts. The radiant sun on the far horizon rises each morning, ushering in a new day, beckoning us toward the future. Now, more than every, how necessary to our world, our church and our very lives, that "HOPE springs eternal in the human breast."
    Anything...and everything...is possible.

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