{"id":19843,"date":"2021-02-17T09:31:15","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T14:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19843"},"modified":"2021-02-17T10:26:25","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T15:26:25","slug":"a-cosmology-of-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19843","title":{"rendered":"A Cosmology of Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0VRUU8UBXCk\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>Christians often use the\nseason of Lent (which begins today), the six and a half weeks preceding Easter,\nto reconnect with God and the fullness of our own humanity\u2014the good and the\nbad\u2014in some intentional way. The act doesn\u2019t need to be sacrificial or impressive,\nbut I\u2019ve found that some form of contemplative practice, reflection, or\ncommitment is a wonderful way to draw closer to God during this time. The world\ninsists that we are what we do and achieve, but contemplation invites us to\npractice under-doing and under-achieving, and reminds us of the simple grace\nand humility of being human. I offer you this description from Barbara Holmes\nabout her own nature-based contemplative practice. <\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the ways I practice contemplation in my\nlife is through fishing. It\u2019s the space and the place where I find a real\nconnection through the ocean, the waves, the sound of the water, the birds\ndiving, and the struggle with the adversary, which is the fish. Now, normally\nwe throw them back, but on occasion we bless them for giving us nurture and\nnourishment and we keep them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I fish with my husband George. Because I am\none of the Gullah [1] women who is a shaman in my family, I am really open. So\nI don\u2019t look at a lot of violent movies and I don\u2019t like to kill things and I\ncan\u2019t put live bait on. And I can\u2019t take hooks out of fish that are wishing\nthey could live. All of those sensitivities make this a practice that I need a\npartner for. And my husband George loves to be in support of it, so we don\u2019t\ntalk a lot. We commune, we listen to music sometimes, other times not. But it\u2019s\nbeing in the cycle of life and enjoying that struggle. And enjoying giving life\nback and releasing some. And realizing that this is the dream that I asked God\nfor long ago. And so God\u2019s grace for me has been that my husband and I live out\na dream I\u2019ve had since I was a child, to breathe salt air, and to just learn\nhow to be.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My parents had to struggle. Suddenly Martin\nLuther King had opened a way. And the cheer and the rallying cry behind us was\n\u201cGo as far as you can go. Go as fast as you can go. Get as many degrees as you\ncan. You now have a chance to be somebody!\u201d And I ran at it as hard as I could\nand I got as many degrees as I could, and three or four careers.&nbsp;<em>But to just be is such a<\/em>&nbsp;<em>blessing!<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>I suppose the equivalent of Barbara\u2019s fishing in my life would be walking my dog. It really can be a contemplative practice where I engage with God, with nature, and with my own beloved friend, Opie. I\u2019m not really doing anything. I\u2019m just being me and being in love with the world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"322\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/image-6-500x322.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19846\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/image-6-500x322.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/image-6-300x193.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/image-6-768x495.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/image-6.png 1904w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christians often use the season of Lent (which begins today), the six and a half weeks preceding Easter, to reconnect with God and the fullness of our own humanity\u2014the good and the bad\u2014in some intentional way. The act doesn\u2019t need to be sacrificial or impressive, but I\u2019ve found that some form of contemplative practice, reflection, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19843"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19843"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19847,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19843\/revisions\/19847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}