A Mystic Garden by Gunilla Norris

Author:Gunilla Norris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BlueBridge
Published: 2012-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

The Tasks at Hand

In a twinkling I can go from smelling the sweet air, loving the morning, relishing time outdoors to just plain getting through whatever the task is that I have at hand. What happens?

I’ve turned myself into a function. I’ve lost my person. Everything around me becomes an object to manipulate or an obstacle to overcome. What makes me human—the capacity to relate, to meet and be met—disappears. I’ve become responsible instead of response-able.

Must it be so to get done the things we have to do? I don’t think we want to believe that. But the truth is that we slip. So often I find myself turning into a garden robot with the start button on—dig, weed, prune, till, snip. I turn snippy. I crash. I have allowed tasks to overwhelm me. I’ve lost all sense of leisure. When we let our survival mind take over we lose both what centers all work and what makes it sacred.

“Take your time,” we say. We mean, “Give yourself time.” We mean, respect your personhood. We mean, be present to what is in the moment. If I am left out of my own heart, who is slashing at the bushes? In such a state can I be trusted? I don’t think so.

We long to be saved within time, to feel that Holy Presence that allows us to perceive what is at hand and to be present enough to recognize it as gift.

God dwells outside of time,

outside of what you call “past”

and “future.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.