Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Who you really are ( A song by Kirtana)

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Who you really are ( A song by Kirtana)

This morning for our quiet prayer we reflected on this song by Kirtana from their album called "The Embrace" There is much food for reflection and thought in its words.

Could there be more to this life we call mine
Than a journey through space or a storyline
More to life than the body can sense
Than the mind can conclude from experience
Does who we are begin with breath,
depend on form or end with death
Strip away these roles, these names
And tell me what remains,
who you really are, who you really are

We measure success by the things we accrue
Or the bonds that we form or the deeds we do
These too shall pass
as hard as we try to hold on to form, form will die
But inherent in this dance of form
is the chance to see what's yet unborn
And the choice to throw this chance away
And be caught up in the play
Of who we think we are who we think we are

This is your lifetime It could end at anytime
Where is your attention?
Where is your prayer? where is your song ?
In a fortunate life comes a call to be free
From a cycle of bondage and dis-identity
To wake from the dream and finally realize
The truth of one's being before the body dies
So before the final scene is past,
See the screen on which it's cast
See what's seeing this - me and you
And then you will see
Who, who you really are

No comments:

Post a Comment

What do we want this novitiate to be?

There is a saying that goes something like this: “If we don’t do what we believe in, then we’ll end up believing in what we do”. Without a vision that is authentic and alive to guide our actions, then we can settle for rationalizing the status quo or what is convenient and comfortable.
One of the first things the new team in Tamale did was to spend time beginning to articulate its vision of a novitiate beyond the basics laid down in our Constitutions. Here are some elements of what we came up with:
Novitiate is a journey, a process that involves KNOWING, EXPERIENCING and CHOOSING.
It is an INITIATION into Christian Brother religious life, so a “rite of passage” into a new identity, a time of learning and testing.
Novitiate confronts the novices with the Brother’s vocation as a call to brotherly solidarity and community, not to privilege, status and security.
It involves exploration of the basic values of faith and vocation, and the challenge to embrace these out of personal conviction and free choice.
Novitiate means understanding that a religious vocation makes a claim on the whole of the person and his life, including his inner life, his relationships and his professional activity (ministry). Furthermore, it challenges the novice to see the dynamic inter-relationship of these areas and to learn what their integration means.
Novitiate is a time of DISCERNMENT. The novice learns more deeply who he is, and what this Christian Brother life is. There is a constant back-and-forth movement between these two poles as an answer is sought to the question, “Is this where I am meant to be? Is this the life that will enable me to find my true self in God?”