"Man's extremity is God's opportunity."
___ Scottish proverb
When we are brought to the verge of crisis, our well-honed philosophies and careful, controlled strategies fall away. All the spars that make up our life raft, the things on which we daily rely, have tendency to break up in the force of events. It is usually when we feel our utter solitude and helplessness that we call upon the spirit world for assistance. Even though we may have no well-founded belief, we instinctively know that even if all other things have fallen away, divine providence will not let us down.
Crisis may help kick-start spirituality temporarily, but only a consenting soul can maintain it. Crisis and extremity are not missionaries on an evangelical campaign trail for our souls; they are agents of change able to strip away the inessentials and awaken us to a deeper resourcefulness that is not ours alone.
Like the volcanic force that shaped the rugged landscapes of Scotland, extremity scoops out hollows and scours deeply embedded rubbles from the surface of our lives, leaving behind deep declivities that only Spirit can fill and temper. The excavation of possibility simultaneously brings the realization of wider capacity. As nature abhors a vacuum, so does Spirit find ways of filling the emptiness of our soul.
We may be aware of none of these realizations in a conscious way during our time of trial, but we can throw the imploring rope of appeal to our spiritual source and ask for it to be safely caught.
"Meditate upon a recent crisis situation in your life. What spiritual opportunities were present? Which did you take up, which refuse? Create your own short invocation for help, to be used in a time of future extremity."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
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