Our brother Gideon Tsang guide us into the practice of contemplation, a practice that invites us to notice your life deeply.
Gideon serves as a member of the pastoral team of Vox Veniae in Austin.
TEXT
Matthew 8: 18-22
“I leave you free to be yourself: to think your thoughts, indulge your tastes, follow your inclinations, behave in ways that you decide are to your liking.”
And you will notice something else:
The person automatically ceases to be especial and important to you. And he/she becomes important the way a sunset or a symphony is lovely in itself, the way a tree is especial in itself and not for the fruit or the shade that it can offer you.
Your beloved will then belong not to you but to everyone or to no one like the sunrise and the tree. Test it by saying those words again: “I leave you free to be yourself ” In saying those words you have set yourself free. You are now ready to love.”
- Anthony DeMello
“For when you cling, what you offer the other is not love but a chain by which both you and your beloved are bound. Love can only exist in freedom. The true lover seeks the good of his beloved which requires especially the liberation of the beloved from the lover.”
- Anthony DeMello
“We are put on earth for a little space that we may learn to bear the beams of love.”
- William Blake
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
Gideon introduces contemplation by inviting us to ask these questions:
Welcome everything
Notice
Practice Curiosity
Notice again
What does it mean?
WORSHIP SET
Hail To The Lord's Anointed
All The Poor And Powerless
Dust We Are And Shall Return
God's Highway
So Will I (100 Billion X)
Even My Darkness