{"id":21202,"date":"2022-04-01T09:43:58","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T13:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21202"},"modified":"2022-04-01T09:46:54","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T13:46:54","slug":"21202","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21202","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/t-29WLQ3trA\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The River of Grace<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard teaches that<strong> a practice of contemplation carries us into the \u201cBig River\u201d of God\u2019s love and enables us to release our fears. \u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Grace and mercy teach us that we are all much larger than the good or bad stories we tell about ourselves or one another. Our small, fear-based stories are usually less than half true, and therefore not really \u201ctrue\u201d at all. They\u2019re usually based on hurts and unconscious agendas that persuade us to see and judge things in a very selective way. They\u2019re not the whole You, not the Great You, and therefore not where Life can really happen. No wonder the Spirit is described as \u201cflowing water\u201d and as \u201c<strong>a spring inside you\u201d<\/strong> (John 4:10\u201314) or as a <strong>\u201criver of life\u201d<\/strong> (Revelation 22:1\u20132). \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I believe that faith might be precisely that ability to trust the Big River of God\u2019s providential love, which is to trust its visible embodiment (the Christ), the flow (the Holy Spirit), and the source itself (the Creator). This is a <strong>divine process that we don\u2019t have to change, coerce, or improve.<\/strong> <strong>We just need to allow it and enjoy it. <\/strong>That takes immense confidence in God, especially when we\u2019re hurting. Often, we feel ourselves get panicky and quickly want to make things right. We lose our ability to be present and go up into our heads and start obsessing.<strong> At that point we\u2019re not really feeling or experiencing things in our hearts and bodies. We\u2019re oriented toward making things happen<\/strong>,<strong> trying to push or even create our own river.<\/strong> Yet the Big River is already flowing through us and each of us is only one small part of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Faith does not need to push the river precisely because it is able to trust that&nbsp;<em>there is a<\/em>&nbsp;<em>river.&nbsp;<\/em>The river is flowing; we are already in it. This is probably the deepest meaning of \u201cdivine providence.\u201d So do not be afraid. We have been proactively given the Spirit by a very proactive God. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ask yourself regularly, <strong>\u201cWhat am I afraid of? Does it matter? Will it matter in the great scheme of things? Is it worth holding on to<\/strong>?\u201d We have to ask whether it is fear that keeps us from loving. Grace will lead us into such fears and emptiness, and<strong> grace alone can fill them,\u00a0<\/strong><em><strong>if we are willing to stay in the void<\/strong><\/em><strong>.<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>We mustn\u2019t engineer an answer too quickly. We mustn\u2019t get settled too fast<\/strong>. We all want to manufacture an answer to take away our anxiety and settle the dust. To stay in God\u2019s hands, to trust, means that we usually have to let go of our attachments to\u00a0feelings\u2014which are going to pass away\u00a0anyway. People of deep faith develop a<strong> high tolerance for ambiguity <\/strong>and come to recognize that it is only the small self that needs certitude or perfect order all the time. <strong>The Godself is perfectly at home in the River of Mystery.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"334\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/image-500x334.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/image-500x334.png 500w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/image-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/image-768x513.png 768w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/image.png 1812w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The River of Grace Father Richard teaches that a practice of contemplation carries us into the \u201cBig River\u201d of God\u2019s love and enables us to release our fears. \u00a0 Grace and mercy teach us that we are all much larger than the good or bad stories we tell about ourselves or one another. Our small, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21202"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21202"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21206,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21202\/revisions\/21206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}