Presence

Last night I was reading in The Wisdom of the Enneagram and reread something that I had forgotten. Well, not really forgotten, it is something I know experientially. I think it was the wording that helped me remember what I already knew. It has to do with Presence, with being, with being present.

In essence, I was reminded that “Presence always reveals what in us is blocking us from becoming more present.” So true. The writers go on to say, in so many words, that presence enables us to become aware of the parts of our souls that we have not owned.

My soul journey reflects this truth. Unknowingly, I rejected parts of myself, my soul, particularly, those parts less attractive, less than what meets my standards of proper being. But as I rest in the Presence of God, I find that my own Presence becomes magnified. What was small and insignificant by my own standards becomes large and significant. The Presence invites me to take back the discarded parts and to become whole, complete.

That is what I want, to be whole, to own all of what is “me,” the ugly, the lovely, and the somewhere-in-between. I want to be present to it all, see it all, embrace it all, and just let it be what it is in the Presence of God. Therein is the work of transformation.

Riso, Don Richard and Russ Hudson. The Wisdom of the Enneagram. New York: Bantam, 1999.

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