A time to keep and a time to give

Photo goodvibeblog.com

A TIME TO KEEP AND TO GIVE

Make sure you don’t take things for granted and go slack in working for the common good; share what you have with others.     Hebrews 13:16

There is a time
for finding and losing,
    keeping and giving.     Ecclesiastes 3:6

I know and share the many sorrows a human being can experience, but I do not cling to them; they pass through me, like life itself, as a broad eternal stream…and life continues...

Etty Hillesum, Holocaust victim.

HOLDING, RUNNING AND LOOKING

I am struck by how much these verses emit a light touch, their sense of free flow and of an easy coming and going. This is contrary to the greed and lust which grasps, and to the acquisition and accumulation which clings. These suck at the heart.

I see and read in contemplation practical means for addressing the subtle, and not so subtle, obsessions and distractions of such behaviours and compulsions. Contemplation recommends looking straight at and through such things, encourages non-judgmental awareness and refuses to indulge in commentary on them.  Not holding onto, nor running from, but looking at and through.

This article is copied, with permission, from the website of the Coracle Trust for whom Andrew Hook works part time.