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Thursday after Ash Wednesday

PHOTO: LAURENCE FREEMAN
 
 
Luke 9:22-25: whoever will save his life will lose it

The English poet George Herbert has been called the poet of the inner weather. Being English he could talk about weather and was finely attuned to its lesser and greater variations.  â€œAfter so many deaths I live and write/I once more smell the dew and rain/And relish versing..” 

Our five senses and physical life are intricately woven into our spiritual seasons. When our spiritual life is clouded by negative states of mind or recurrent patterns that keep us self-absorbed our senses too lose their edge. We feel dull, depressed and unengaged with the world and all its relationships in which we live and breathe. But when we are spiritually awake our senses pick up the vitality of life and we can smell, see, touch, hear and taste – whether it is ravishing or disgusting at least we will sense it fully for what it is. The sensual part of our consciousness needs the spiritual and the spiritual needs the sensual. When they are balanced they merge and form a single, perfect language and we experience wholeness.

So, as Lent gets underway, consider the two practices I described yesterday in the light of what you are sensing. Don’t become too conceptual, too idealised about them. Each day you can evaluate how you have been doing but with detachment and humour rather than a judgemental attitude.

The morning and evening meditations calibrate all this in a way that is natural and spontaneous. It’s how you lose yourself wholly and this helps you find yourself in your wholeness. You don’t have to keep looking under the hood of the car to examine the engine. You will feel that the car (rather like the ego) is running properly and getting you where you are going.
 
With love
Laurence
 
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