What is Emerging?
Posted on February 1, 2021, by Mary Ellen McElroy SL
A gift from the Forum this past year was the lovely and challenging Advent Reflections 2020 booklet that was adapted from “Seeing Where You Belong in a Post-Pandemic World” by Mary Pellegrino, CSJ. The reflections and questions called each of us not to get caught in the false security of “getting back to normal,” but to take the challenge of moving forward with faith and trust so that real transformation can take place in our broken world! So as we begin this new year we have a good start not to just see where we belong at this time, but to realize we have the insight, the courage and the motivation to make the choices that have the potential to remake our world into a world that will work for everyone!
To help us continue this Advent journey and ‘dive’ right into 2021, we invite you to ponder with us the following excerpts from the poem that is printed on the last page of the Advent booklet by Kahlil Gibran: “It is said that before entering the sea, a river trembles with fear… But there is no other way. The river cannot go back. The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.”
What does it mean to become the ocean? What do I/we need to let go of to shed our riverhood and embrace our oceanhood? Like the river, there is no going back — no retuning to what was, only moving into the future with open hearts, because that’s where we will become.
If you would like to share any of your reflections, we would be happy to receive them. Thank you and New Year Blessings to all!
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