While walking through the beautiful & vibrant Umbrian countryside, my imagination went back in time to visualize these hilltop villages eight centuries ago, without lights or power, phones or internet.
For a moment I experienced the simplicity of a time before climate change, and the 24/7 news cycle. On the trail, the machinations of political leaders and the spirit of unrest that has enveloped the globe dissolved as I pondered the journey of another pilgrim like myself, trying to make sense of his own inner stirrings and the challenges of his own time and place and looking for a way of life that would nurture his spirit and serve the world.
Wandering along the same paths that St Francis walked, I visualized St Francis gazing at sunrise over the Appenine Mountains and I get a sense of his extraordinary courage & fearlessness!
By giving up attachment to his family’s material wealth & social status and retreating to the wilderness to become intimate with the wild, he completely died into the life that he loved...
Instead of living in fear of any death that could end his life...
He heard the call to a greater life and leapt fearlessly into it’s wild embrace!
Through his intimate connection with nature he must have experienced that we are an integral part of the whole ecosystem, interconnected & interdependent, and when we live in harmony within that we tap into the natural flow of abundance that already exists.
The audacious actions of St Francis breathed new life into the stale traditions of the Church. He brought the experience of a Living God to the here & now. He became a kind of mystical activist, inspiring people to change the way they relate to the Divine.
Perhaps we need we need this same agile spirit to confront individually and institutionally the critical challenges of our modern world?
Perhaps there is a mystical activist within us, waiting for us to have an experience of the interconnectedness of everything, so we too, can bring beauty & healing to our own part of the world?
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