I quoted the following two poems at a refresher day for spiritual directors earlier in the year. The theme of my keynote talk was "Expanding Horizons of Spiritual Direction in the 21st Century". I love this part of TS Eliot's poem because it matches my own experience of being called by Love to explore ever more widely and yet finding that all my explorations only add to my deeper understanding of what Jesus was really "on about"! And yes - it is a condition of "complete simplicity" which costs "not less than everything"!
With the drawing of this Love
and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
TS Eliot from Little Gidding
And then there's this marvellous poem from Margaret Wheatley that speaks so accurately of what commitment to growth and expansion really involves!
Raven teach me to ride the winds of change.
Perch where the wind comes at you full force.
Let it blow you apart till your feathers fly off and you look like hell.
Then abandon yourself. The wind is not your enemy.
Nothing in life is.
Go where the wind takes you – higher – lower- backwards.
The wind to carry you forward will find you
When you are ready.
When you can bear it.
