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  A Prayer Diary

"Who am I to judge?"

2/27/2017

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As you know, I’ve been staying away from politics. Why? because I am called to lead my life as a Christian, and being upset and angry keeps me away from even thinking in terms of love, forgiveness and redemption.
I pray for our president and our leaders. I pray that they will be kind and loving to all; that they will have compassion for all people: the Muslim, the Jew, the Christian, the agnostic, the atheist; the Hispanic, the Black, the Caucasian; the gay, the lesbian, the transgender, the straight.
     I believe that we are all wonderfully and perfectly made just as we are and that Christ calls us to love everyone. I believe that we are to show that love through thought, word and deed. As Pope Francis recently said, “Who am I to judge?”
     I try not to judge President Trump but I hear his words.  I pray that his heart will open to ALL people. We reap what we sow, and I am doing what I can to sow love.
     “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). If God asks this of me, he surely asks it of our leaders.



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Reading in the sun~

2/23/2017

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     I continue to be awed by the sense of God’s presence as I lie on the couch in the sun reading. Sometimes I stop and let it wash over me. Other times I feel compassion take center stage, compassion for every character. I can usually find a piece of myself in each one, part broken, part loving. Isn’t that the way we are, filled with both?
     These moments of awe remained with me today during my walk. I feel closer to God than during times of formal prayer.


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Reading for compassion--a God idea

2/17/2017

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I am posting the following both there and my acottagebythesea blog. I want to emphasize here that my reading for compassion project is God’s work.
The other day when I told a spiritual friend about the project, she unequivocally felt God’s grace and power. Here was God, working in God’s wonderful and mysterious way. I feel that too, which gives me the best ever reason to keep going. This isn’t just a good idea, it is a God idea.
 
I have been pondering the birthday gift of book titles I received from Face Book friends and from those of you who read this blog. What began as my participation in the 2017 Goodreads Reading Challenge, quickly morphed into an antidote to political negativity, accompanied by my desire to read for compassion. What I am pondering today, a month and a half into the project, is the effect it is having on me, my gift-giving friends, and, dare I believe, the wider world.
     My reading began as intellectual learning--different lifestyles, points of view, periods in history--but then expanded to include feelings of compassion, first for the particular characters and situations, and then to something more universal--a feeling without words deep in my heart.
     I know very little of the effect this gift has had on my friends. I am sure that those who sent a suggestions spent time thinking about perfect book for me. I have thanked a few personally, and made a few general post on FB and here, but that’s about it. And yet, I still feel a personal connection with each of them.
As far as the effect in the wider world, I am certain this project is making a difference; after all, I believe the world is always a more faithful, hopeful, and loving place when we live from compassion. Reading these books enables me participate in just that.
     (You can read how this got started on my posts at the end of December 2016 and beginning of January 2017.)



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Let go, let God.

2/11/2017

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For the past few days I have wanted to write, but I can’t come up with the words. You see, when I feel God’s presence, there are no words, because God is beyond words. I just know/feel God.
     That is the best I can say, but perhaps I can explain how this presence without words has come about. First of all, I have let go of trying to figure it all out: “Here I am God,” is about it for words. Also, I am practicing Centering Prayer daily, the essence of which is no words. Finally, I am reading, and, what is amazing and totally unexpected, is God’s presence that comes over me from time to time when I have book in hand.
     Today my mantra is, “Let go, let God.” Give it a try.


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Listening to Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2/8/2017

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     I’ll write some more about this soon. Right now I’m grappling with how, as a Christian, I can spread Christ’s message of love and work for the furthering of God’s kingdom on earth.
The following is also on my cottage-by-the-sea blog.

 
     Whenever I am asked if I miss going to my cottage-by-the-sea, I say, “Yes, I miss it; it was a special time, but a not-forever-time. My home routine is right.”
When I spent those four or five days in the middle of the winter weeks at the cottage I felt calm, centered, and in the moment. Internet access was weak and unreliable, I ate sparingly and intentionally, I never had a glass of wine, I walked every day, I did jigsaw puzzles, I read, prayed, and watched the sunrise even when it was too cloudy to see, I talked to no one, and I never watched TV or listened to the news or read a newspaper.
     Now that I am home, some of those routines have remained—the walking, reading, praying, jigsaw puzzle, no wine, the eating. I talk more, but I lead a quite life. I am on the internet more, although recently I have chosen to check Face Book only twice a day.
     However, even with so much cottage behavior that has become part of my routine, lately I have felt the return of the cottage presence in my life. What is the common denominator? It has to be no TV no news, which gave me peace and time to stay centered at the cottage, and now gives me peace and time to stay centered at home.
 
P.S. I wrote this post a few days ago. Alas, I wish it stood as is, but after the DeVos vote and the sanction of my senator, Elizabeth Warren, I cannot return to the cottage. As a Christian, I cannot erase Dietrich Bonhoeffer and The Confession Church in Nazi Germany from my mind and heart.



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Spiritual energy~

2/3/2017

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    " ... People who are approaching ... spiritual evolution are having an impact on society, because the energy they are channeling is so sublime that it secretly influences social events or decisions anywhere in the world."
This morning, as I read this quote by Thomas Keating on www.contemplativeoutreach.com, it occurred to me that this is what I am striving for in choosing to stay away from reading and watching the news and refraining from talking about politics. I’m often not successful, but I’m getting better and better at returning to my purpose, which is to live prayerfully and positively. As God calls me to intercessory prayer, God calls me to step outside the hubbub of many areas of public life. I have to listen to what God wants me to do to help ‘Thy kingdom come’.
     I have no illusion that everyone ought to follow this path; it just my path. I believe, however, that spiritual energy can change the world.


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