The Still Point
“We cannot face large-scale crises as individuals; we cannot carry the pain of this reality on our own, nor can we only look out for ourselves. The pain is communal and so too must be the response.”
Dear Friends,
In a phone conversation with my sister this week, she told me, “Today, I just lost it.”
She and her husband made the decision that their son could come and retrieve some items from their basement, but it would be best not to be in contact respecting the power of this virus.
“I just lost it,” is one way to describe finding our still point. All our defenses, our resolve, sometimes our faith, is in momentary collapse. It can feel like a ‘mini-death’ as we experience just where we are in the moment. And, “losing it” is a way our body finds its needed release. This relief and the sense of hitting bottom can also give us the knowledge that the ground is firm. As my sister put it, “I needed it.”
In the language of faith, “it is the tears of Hagar, the Muslims, “point vierge” of the spirit, the center of our nothingness where, in apparent despair, one meets God—and is found completely in God’s mercy”. Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Hope
Thomas Merton wrote about the “point vierge” from which Stillpoint took its name.
Le point vierge
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is, so to speak, the Holy’s name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence.
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
The still point is in each of us. And in these uncharted waters of a global pandemic, we can help each other find rest in its harbor, even if briefly each day. I am so grateful for those who have joined me daily at 5:30pm Monday through Friday for a virtual Centering Prayer practice. Together we hold this space and help one another be still, and know I AM God. In doing so we hold the whole world. You are invited to come. Click here to join.
We begin with a chant to ground our bodies for the silence. We sit together, each in our own shelters, in our own bodies and we support one another in resting briefly for 20 minutes of communal silence. We are encouraged to let go of all thinking, desires to fix or change, or figure out, and return to the still point again and again. Many have told me, what is true for me, it anchors me. I return to my life feeling the gentle mist of God’s presence and mercy on me. It is a place to lose my life and gain it completely.
We cannot find this innermost, but only be found by it in our wholehearted willingness to join it at the point of nothing. It is through this little point or spark of pure truth that the Mercy flows into us and through us.
It is the spring at the bottom of the well of our being through which hope is continually renewed.
Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Hope
What are your ways of finding the still point?
Stillpoint is offering opportunities for you to tend the point vierge within in the company of others. We have created a place on our website where you can access Still Points. We invite you to bring your presence to these offerings with the knowing that your presence will help others.
To all who are doing the holy work of offering shelter of body, mind and spirit in this storm we feel great gratitude. Please let us know if we can help you share your offerings.
ALL CURRENT STILL POINTS CAN BE FOUND HERE
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Pandemic
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
--Lynn Ungar 3/11/20
Blessings for the Journey,
Elizabeth+
“As pervasive and fundamental as evil appears to be, the recurrent hope in Celtic Spirituality is that the darkness cannot overcome God’s essential light.”