Blog Archives

Finding and maintaining balance

2/27/2016

   In the daily posting from Society of St. John the Evangelist as part of the Lenten series, Growing a Rule of Life, Brother Curtis posed the following question: How can you find and maintain a healthier balance in your life? He then offered three ways that he strives for balance every day.
   First, have beauty in your life, regardless of the challenges that face you. He suggests we consciously take beauty into our daily diet. Living in country I’m apt to take the beauty around me for granted, even on my walk. Today I will take in beauty.
   Next, every day plan something enjoyable in your life. Again, I take those moments for granted. Today I will plan something enjoyable.
   Do not ‘dis’ or disrespect yourself. There are so many way we can be negative about ourselves. Today I will not ‘dis’ myself.
   He also suggests we part with something every day. “Even in a monastery we accumulate things and I find it enormously liberating – I travel lighter – by parting with something every day. It will also change your relationship to things, where you’re aware that you’re stewarding something for as long as it’s helpful, and when it’s time to let it go, you part with it. Not cling, but part with it.” Today I will get rid of something.
   Finally, Br. Curtis urges us to create a Sabbath habit. Taking time away from busyness doesn’t have to be for a day but for a period of time. I’m pretty go at this now that I’m retired, but I can feel I’m on the run. Today I will be conscious of a Sabbath moment.

'Tent pegs' for growing a rule of life

2/23/2016

     I continue to participate in the on-line Lenten series, “Growing a Rule of Life’ offered by the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Br. Geoffrey Tristram in his Sunday sermon, “Rule of Life and Our Relationship with God,” asked us to start with the following question.
     “So the first question to ask ourselves before we do anything else, is ‘what is most important to me?’ It’s to do with vision. What sort of person do I want to become? How is God calling me to grow? Only then can you ask the question, ‘How can I order my life, how can I live out my daily life in such a way that I can grow into that person that I feel God wants me to be?’”
     Brother Geoffrey then offers three spiritual practices, what he calls ‘tent pegs’, that we should commit to every day to deepen our relationship with God: daily prayer, honor our body, and get in touch with wonder. I’m doing okay with the first two: I have a place and time to pray every morning; and I walk very day and do a fairly good job of eating healthy. But I fall short in feeling a sense of wonder. Even when I am outside, I find myself thinking rather than looking around at nature. I forget my commitment although I like to think that if I remembered it, I would follow through.

My Centering Prayer report

2/19/2016

I’m giving myself a good report card on Centering Prayer *. I’ve showed up for twenty minutes twice a day for one month, starting January 19th at La Badia in Florence, and now here today in the Angel Room.
     I show up with the intention of sitting with God. It’s not about how good I am at it, but about my intention.
     At first I concentrated on feeling my breath and ‘trying’ to empty my mind; my ‘word’ was ‘Jesus’. It was about doing. Lately I notice that the doing is shifting to being. Less thinking. Just showing up with intention; my word is ‘intention’.
    The shift in my relationship with God and in my faith in palpable. Beyond words. I’ll write about it when the words come. Meanwhile, if you are on a serious spiritual journey, I strongly recommend giving centering prayer a try—don’t try, do it with intention. It will make a worldly and heavenly difference in your life.

* “Intimacy with God,” by Thomas Keating
www.contemplativeoutreach.org

Walking around with God

2/16/2016

View from the front door.

‘How do you feel connected to God on a daily basis?’ is today’s question from the free on-line Lenten program, “Growing a Rule of Life,” created by the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My answer is a response to one of the participants who said that she ‘drove around with God.’
Lately when I take my daily walk, I notice that my primary intention is to ‘walk around with God.’ This means I try to get rid of the chatter in my mind and just BE with God. Today I can’t wait to get out there, but the challenge is the weather. It snowed last night and the forecast is for fifty degrees, windy and rainy. Where and when can I safely walk? I feel connected enough to God to know that God will lead me.

Check it out and consider joining us: http://ssje.org/ssje/growrule/

Growing a Rule of Life (1)

2/15/2016

I am participating in a free on-line Lenten program, “Growing a Rule of Life,” create by the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I encourage you to sign on and grow along with the rest of us.
From time to time on A Prayer Diary I will post my response to a question posed.

http://ssje.org/ssje/growrule/

What makes you most aware of God’s love?
My life has been filled with God’s love and I have been blessed with a disposition that see the light in most everything that happens. Because of this God-given lens, however, I am not always aware that it is God’s love that is pouring forth in what I see and do. I take the blessings for granted and forget God.
As I work through this process of growing a rule of life, my prayer is that I will live deeply and consciously into God’s love. One simple way is to add, “Thank you, God,” when I express gratitude.

Invocation for Lent, by Kate Mclhagga

2/13/2016

Into the dark world
a snowdrop comes,
a blessing of hope and peace
carrying within it a green heat:
symbol of God’s renewing love.
Come to inhabit our darkness, Lord Christ,
for dark and light are alike to you.
May nature’s white candles of hope
remind us of your birth
and lighten our journey
through Lent and beyond.
Kate Mclhagga

Ash Wednesday again; Lent again.

2/10/2016

      My church has two services, one at noon, the other at 7:00. Each will be different, but each will offer ashes and communion. I will attend both.
     I wonder what will be different about this Lent from all the others in which I’ve participated. I remember my dad suggesting I take on something not just give up something. I tried to do both but I’m pretty sure I didn’t challenge myself. By that I mean really give up something important like morning coffee, or really take on something like cooking and delivering a meal every day to someone in need. I smile and whatever example I come up with. One of the points of giving up something is to remember God, which I would definitely do without coffee. But that’s just the start. The bigger point is to hear what God wants me to take on.
     One of the scriptures read on Ash Wednesday is Isaiah 58:1-12. The prophet talks about selfish reasons we fast, and then the Lord goes on to say:
   Is not this the fast that I choose; to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the hopeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am (Isaiah 58:6-9).
I am still questioning the giving up and taking on aspect of Lent. Maybe
what’s important right now is the question not the answer.

Coffee with Sr. Vassa

2/8/2016

Perhaps you’d like to have www.coffeewithsistervassa.com
I discovered this site a few months ago and have found Sister Vassa’s daily thought just the right compliment to my morning coffee. I receive her daily messages via email. You can read them or listen on Podcast.
Sr. Dr. Vassa Larin is a liturgiologist of the University of Vienna in Austria and nun of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

Needing Spirit

2/4/2016

This quote by Irenaeus (130-202 CE) helps explain why I call myself a Christian. Plainly stated, I just can’t do it alone! Carnal lusts isn’t the term I would use, but on my own my soul and body remain self-centered/lustful. The Spirit, on the other hand, lifts me up to be the better self that I so long to be and that God wants me to be.
Jesus is with me, leading me, picking me up, forgiving me, showing me the way. Although I use the word me to describe what Jesus does, the me is the object of Jesus and Spirit raising me up to the life of God.

The perfect man consists of three elements: flesh, soul, and Spirit. One preserves and fashions—this is the Spirit; the other is united and formed—that is the flesh; that which is between these two is the soul, which sometimes, when it follows the Spirit is raised up by it. But sometimes it sympathizes with the flesh and falls into carnal lusts. Many do not have the Spirit who preserves and fashions: these are called flesh and blood by St. Paul….But all those who fear God and trust in his Son’s advent and who through faith establish the Spirit of God in their hearts, such men as these shall be properly called ‘spiritual’ because they possess the Spirit of the Father who purifies man and raises him up to the life of God.

Spiritual direction~

2/1/2016

It is probably too strong a statement to say that everybody should have a spiritual director, but I’m thinking that for those of us whose vocation is to accompany people on their spiritual journey, it is a good idea to have someone who will do the same for us. A good friend, with that honest back and forth dialog, is not what I’m talking about. I’m suggesting a one-sided conversation ‘all about me,’ where I don’t have to give the other person equal time to blurt.
Those of us called to listen to others, need someone who will listen to us. We need time to talk through our God issues. If we don’t, we risk the chance that ‘Hey, what about me?’ may sneak into our listening. With that, resentment takes over, and the vocation of spiritual accompaniment disappears.