For Further Reflection:

Below are a few additional readings and suggestions for practice, for deeper reflection on this theme.

Beloved Is Where We Begin, by Jan Richardson

If you would enter into the wilderness,

do not begin without a blessing.

Do not leave without hearing who you are:

Beloved, named by the One who has travelled this path before you.

Do not go without letting it echo in your ears,

and if you find it is hard to let it into your heart, do not despair.

That is what this journey is for.

I cannot promise this blessing will free you

from danger, from fear, from hunger or thirst,

from the scorching of sun or the fall of the night.

But I can tell you that on this path there will be help.

I can tell you that on this way there will be rest.

I can tell you that you will know the strange graces that come to our aid

only on a road such as this,

that fly to meet us bearing comfort and strength,

that come alongside us for no other cause than to lean themselves toward our ear and with their curious insistence whisper our name:

Beloved. 

Beloved. 

Beloved.

Receiving your belovedness

At this point in our in-person meetings we have a time of taking communion. So I invite you to try one of the following at this point:

• If you feel free to do this, find some bread and wine/juice, and as you receive the bread and the wine, read these words slowly, with the same simple receptivity as eating and drinking: "You are my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased."

• Alternatively, bring your awareness to your breathing, and as you receive the in-breath, read these words slowly, with the same simple receptivity as taking in your breath: "You are my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased."

Just sit there, by Hafiz

Just sit there right now.

Don't do a thing.

Just rest.

For your seperation from God

is the hardest work in this world.

Everyday life practice:

Some of you my have done this practice that was suggested in the last talk, but I encourage you to continue with this. It is important that we help one another to see our belovedness, by mirroring this to each other. As you go through your daily life, ask yourself if you are adding to the shame that others feel, or if there is instead some way that you can hold up a mirror for them that reminds them that they are made in God's image, that who they are is very good.

Bowing to one another as the beloved of God is another way of practicing this through the day, or saying under our breath “You are God’s beloved child”.

“To pray, that is, to listen to the voice of the One who calls us the "beloved", is to learn that that voice excludes no one. Where I dwell, God dwells with me and where God dwells with me I find all my sisters and brothers. And so intimacy with God and solidarity with all people are two aspects of dwelling in the present moment that can never be separated."

― Henri Nouwen