Some are scanning the surface looking for their next meal.
Some are deeper, moving in and out of shadows.
Some are taking refuge behind rocks nearer the surface, resting, almost completely still except for the gentlest undulation of their bodies, a slowly animated S, a gentle wag of a fishtail that allows them to stay right where they are.
I've felt envious of resting trout sometimes. Imagine--resting so easily in a moving stream.
'I love you, O Lord,
my God, my Rock
in whom I take refuge....'
These are words of a psalm many of us have seen, taken to heart, and prayed in one way and another many, many times. Times when we've felt afraid, wounded, baffled or swept away.
For decades I recalled and prayed this kind of prayer as if all the work was God's. Contemplative practice has been an epiphany. We have essential work to do in 'refuging' too. We have 'to take' it--take refuge.
These days I'm practicing that gentle-undulating-fishtale movement that keeps us poised in the still water where we are able to
Be still
and KNOW
that God is God. When it becomes obvious that strong currents are wearing me down or sweeping me places I don't need to be, I don't just pray to the Rock, I swim to It.
And when the currents are strong (in other words when we most need refuge) swimming can be arduous. But then, alleluia, we reach the Rock, we find the Still-Place. We rest.
Of course, even when we rest in the still waters like a trout, we also drift. Woosh--we're caught again in the current--all at once 10 feet downstream!
It takes another burst of effort to get back to a place of the undulating, slowing moving S that keeps us in the still-place. And then another sweeping-away and another burst of effort. And then another. And another. This is a basic rhythm of mindful practice.
Is Taking Refuge grace or work?
YES!
Look at the words. One is active. One is not.
It's really a kind of koan for contemplative prayer.
One
is active!
One
is not!
---
"People are not free when they are doing just what
they like. People are only free when they are doing what the deepest self
likes. And there is getting down to the deepest self! It takes some
diving." --D. H. Lawrence
