Knowing who you are -by Heidi

Spending time in SCCA's Chapel

I have been spending a fair amount of time lately hanging out on the couch. Somehow I envisioned being productive while being on the couch. I thought, "ok, so you are not energetic, you can still read, you can talk on the phone, you can knit, you can pray". But reality (as usual) has not been so rosy. When I feel bad enough to lay on the couch, it is like a horrible cold with malaise. I don't want to do anything. And if I force myself, it comes out badly. I lose track of the conversation when I am talking with a dear friend. My knitting needs to be pulled out because I didn't notice mistakes. Words don't flow they way I want when I am trying to write a note. My concentration is WAY down so I will forget in the middle of a prayer what I am praying. This, by the way, is where reading a prayer written by someone else or reading scripture helps me. God has to just manage with prayers He has heard before :) !

Support from SCCA's Chaplaincy Director

This has brought me back to my insidious expectation that who I am = what I do. I know in my head what a lie that is. My emotions and self-image are slow to come along. I have appreciated James Pyles blog for several years but this one really hit me between the eyes. Especially his quote from Rabbi Tzvi Freeman and exposition from it.
"From a point before and beyond all things, G-d looked upon a moment in time to be, and saw there a soul, distant from Him in a turbulent world, yet yearning to return to Him and His oneness. And He saw the pleasure He would have from this union.
So He invested His infinite light into that finite image, and became one with that image, and in that image He created each one of us.
As for that moment He saw, that was the moment now.
-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“G-d’s Image”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org"
This quiets my emotions, reminds me that all doing comes from God's being, not my scurrying around checking off lists.

 Thank you James. http://mymorningmeditations.com/2012/04/19/the-journey-of-gods-image/

- by Heidi