Days 250-254 – Resting in Awe – Journal of Sacred Work

The woman in the museum rests against a door jam. Is she at rest within?

Surrounded by some of the finest human-made beauty at the Art Institute of Chicago she has the chance to rest in awe. Has she yet received the love she seeks?

There can never be too much love. There can never be too much beauty. Both are free. Yet they are often withheld as if spending them would bankrupt both giver & receiver.

David Hart expresses this perfectly in The Experience of God. "In the dawn of life we sense with a perfect immediacy… how miraculous it is…As we age…we lose our sense of the intimate otherness of things; we allow habit to displace awe…"

It is so hard to escape habit. You hang a painting & admire it. Days later it begins to vanish from your awareness. Years may go by with your painting unseen.

Hart writes, "there are only fleeting instants scattered throughout our lives when all at once, our defenses momentarily relaxed, we find ourselves brought to a pause by a sudden unanticipated sense of the utter uncanniness of the reality we inhabit… One realizes that everything about the world that seems so unexceptional and drearily predictable is in fact charged with an immense and imponderable mystery. (italics added.)

Why do we erect defenses against beauty? It takes new seeing & real practice to look with sacred eyes.

Why are we so often miserly with our love? Because love can be painful.

Yet, if you have ever loved anyone or anything you have discovered that the subject of your love is endlessly interesting, always simultaneously familiar, new & exciting.

Rest in awe of Love's gifts. Celebrate them every day as they emerge miraculous from your secret, sacred heart.

Erie Chapman

Photograph by Erie

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Categories: Health Care, Meditations, Weblogs

Tags: Art Institute of Chicago, awe, caregivers, David Hart, Erie Chapman, The Experience of God

8 responses to “Days 250-254 – Resting in Awe”

Terry Chapman

September 5, 2016 at 5:47 am

Yes, so easy to just move from day to day not sensing or appreciating the unbelievable “work of art” that our lives are! From dawn’s first rays to approaching changes in leaf colors to sharing time with friends and loved ones. And realizing that the old guy I see while walking, who limps along the highway with his trusty mutt alongside him has his own idea of a great day though he has few possessions and very little promise of a comfortable future. Or for me, as always, when I am out in nature, either simply walking around a park or wading a trout stream, or finding wonder in an excellent non-fiction work of personal adventure, I am engrossed in life fully and am always, well, almost always, grateful for my very existence on Planet Earth!

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Julie

September 5, 2016 at 8:38 am

Yes, it is so easy to slip into the “I got to be doing something”. But love is so present in every day things and people.
If we pause, we shall see the sacred heart in all of us. Thank you Erie!

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teresa reynolds

September 5, 2016 at 6:19 pm

First of all, I can’t get over the photograph. The moment she rests in the foreground before the man passes by, possibly unseen. “Is she at rest within?” We will never know but in contemplating the question, rest appears for me. It’s so easy to believe we have finally “arrived”. Just listen to us argue after we’ve watched enough news to know who is bad and who is good., The chaos has finally been put into order. That notion seems to be at cross purposes with your beautiful suggestion to “rest in awe”. Awe is the never ending unfolding of beauty at the hands of the Timeless. There is nothing safe about an ever expanding Universe. There is everything beautiful inside allowing and receiving the oncoming traffic of beauty.
Thank you!!

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~liz Wessel

September 5, 2016 at 8:54 pm

Your loving reflection stirs varied thoughts, Erie. In a world of scarcity … when we give we fear we may lose something, which I think coincides with the thinking of the world… yet with sacred seeing through the eyes of Love, in essence what we give, we receive. Love is also a space of vulnerability and when we take a risk we let down our defenses. You really splendidly captured such a candid moment in this young woman’s expression.
How sad and so true, we take for granted so much of the routines and patterns that we come to rely on but do not necessarily cherish until perhaps something jars us. I have heard more that one very passionate artist say…90% of the effort is painstaking work that can be very tedious. Yet, it is all worth it for the beauty of the performance, the creation or a spontaneous moment.
This morning I had time to read a book rather than rush off to work and I relished the experience. This is such an apt reflection for this labor day, to rest in awe. Thank you for gifting us with beauty.

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erie

September 6, 2016 at 4:38 pm

Love this comment, Terry. Thank you. “I am engrossed in life fully and am always, well, almost always, grateful for my very existence on Planet Earth!” What a good life you have:-)

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erie chapman

September 6, 2016 at 4:39 pm

You are surely one with a deeply sacred heart, Julie. Thank you for your comment

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erie chapman

September 6, 2016 at 4:40 pm

First, thank you for commenting on the photograph. “Awe is the never ending unfolding of beauty at the hands of the Timeless.” Thank you for this poetic insight and for this: “There is everything beautiful inside allowing and receiving the oncoming traffic of beauty.”

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erie chapman

September 6, 2016 at 4:42 pm

Thank you for noticing this young lady’s expression in the picture and for your comments about love and beauty like this: “Love is also a space of vulnerability and when we take a risk we let down our defenses.”

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