Hello friends.
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighborhood monk in dogs.
And welcome to this first day of a special series where we continue to consider what it means to abide in God.
And to do this we're going to take a slow walk through St.
Paul's letter to the Colossians.
What I hope you'll find is that in this text there's some beautiful images which help us not only find our place within the Divine Presence,
But also teach us how we can sink even more deeply into it.
So let's begin just by bringing ourselves into this moment,
Taking a nice deep breath,
Letting our bodies and minds and hearts come into a sense of stillness and awareness of Christ's voice speaking to us through the words of St.
Paul.
So we begin with Colossians chapter 1 verses 1 to 8.
Paul,
An apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
And Timothy our brother,
To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ,
In Colossae,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
In our prayers for you we always thank God,
The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints,
Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.
You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth,
The gospel that has come to you.
Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world,
So it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God.
This you learned from Epaphras,
Our beloved fellow servant.
He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit.
And so we're going to begin our journey through Colossians by simply being awake,
Aware,
And noticing.
And as you heard that introduction of St.
Paul's letter to the Colossians,
What's really striking about it when you compare it particularly to some of the other letters like Romans,
Is just how gentle Paul is here.
You notice he doesn't just jump in and start correcting them,
There's no urgency,
There's no sense that something's wrong that needs fixing.
And instead he starts with gratitude.
Paul writes to this community and begins not by telling them what they lack,
But by naming what is already alive among them.
He speaks of their faith,
Of their love,
Their hope,
And he gives thanks because he sees that something's been growing quietly in their lives.
And to me this feels like a deeply contemplative way to begin.
Because quite often when we think about spiritual growth,
We assume it begins with effort,
With discipline,
With doing more,
Praying more,
Trying harder,
Going to this,
Going to that,
Picking up this new devotion or practice.
We assume growth begins when we decide to make something happen.
But Paul's opening in this letter reminds us that much of what matters most in the spiritual life doesn't begin with effort,
But with awareness.
Paul notices what's already there,
What's already present.
He pays attention to what's been growing,
Deepening,
And taking root long before anyone thought to measure it.
Faith has been growing,
Love has been deepening,
And hope has been taking root.
And none of this has happened all of a sudden,
Or with some dramatic bang,
But slowly and steadily.
And that feels like a helpful place for us to begin this journey.
By not asking what do I need to fix,
Or what do I do better,
Or how do I,
You know,
Bring this new practice in.
But by asking something that's completely different and perhaps a little left field for a lot of us.
And that's by asking what is already here,
Alive within me.
Because abiding,
That living within a deeper awareness of the presence of God,
Rarely begins when we strive for it.
I think it begins with noticing.
Noticing what's already unfolding.
Noticing what's been quietly taking shape beneath the surface of our lives.
I think there's something deeply hopeful about this too,
Because it suggests that growth isn't anything we manufacture,
But something we discover.
Think about how growth happens in the natural world.
We talked about this through Lent,
How seeds don't strain themselves into existence,
And roots don't force their way into the soil through sheer effort.
Growth just happens,
Quite often invisibly,
Beneath the surface,
Long before anything appears above the ground.
And when the time's right,
What's been growing within becomes visible.
And that seems to be how faith grows as well.
We don't grow because of spurts of intensity,
And we don't need dramatic moments,
And spiritual growth happens in its own time through a quiet persistence.
Ordinary days,
Small choices,
Relationships,
Moments of kindness that for the most part we hardly notice.
And sometimes,
The most transformative spiritual practice we can adopt isn't adding something new,
Not that there's anything wrong with that,
But by becoming aware of what's already unfolding and has unfolded within us.
And Paul gives thanks because he sees evidence of faith and love and hope.
Those three things,
Faith,
Love,
And hope,
They're not just some,
You know,
Left-field ideas for Paul here either.
Faith,
Hope,
And love to Paul are signs of God's presence,
Signs that grace has been at work in ways that may not have been obvious at the time.
Faith is that resilient trust that keeps turning towards life,
And love,
Which is that willingness to remain open to others,
And hope,
That refusal to give up on what's still becoming.
And all three of these are signs of something deeper moving within us,
Which brings us to the heart of today's reflection.
Awareness begins with noticing grace already at work,
Here,
Now,
Already at work.
And maybe that's the most important shift we can make at the beginning of a journey like this,
To move from forcing and striving to being awake and noticing,
To move from asking what must I become to asking what has already begun.
Because when we learn to notice what's already growing,
Something changes within us.
We become less anxious,
Less driven,
Less hurried.
We begin to trust that growth is possible,
Even when we can't see it clearly.
We start to see that trust becomes the soil in which abiding takes root.
And this happens because we take the time to see,
To notice what's already happened,
Already shifted in our lives.
So today,
Rather than adding another practice to your life,
I want to offer a question for you to carry and to sit with for a while.
Where has life been growing in you without you forcing it?
Don't look for where you performed well.
Look for where something good has been taking shape slowly and gently without pressure.
Maybe it's patience that's grown over time.
Maybe there's compassion that feels more natural than it once did.
Maybe it's a steadiness that wasn't there before.
Maybe it's a hope that refuses to disappear even when life feels uncertain.
And when you see them,
Be sure to notice that they aren't small things,
Even if they are small things.
What they are,
Are signs of presence.
Signs that grace has been at work beneath the surface of your life long before you thought to even look for it.
And as you move through the rest of today,
You might carry this awareness of noticing.
Noticing moments of life,
Moments of connection,
Moments where love appears in quiet ways.
Just simply noticing because this is where abiding begins.
With attention,
With recognition,
And with gratitude.
But gratitude not as obligation,
But as awareness.
An awareness on what is already alive in you.
And may grace,
Peace,
And love go with you into your day,
Today,
And always.
Amen.
We continue in Colossians tomorrow.
Until then,
Peace be with you.
