pray share and chat 6/30/2021 focus worry

 

1. meditation

vagus nerve reset 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eFV0FfMc_uo

2. Lead Me, Guide Me ... a video prayer reflection - YouTube

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOSWFvLcQEw

3. narrative 

https://richerbyfar.com/2015/04/30/daily-riches-anxiety-rising-in-my-chest-mary-oliver-richard-rohr-lewis-thomas-matt-licata/

DAILY RICHES: ANXIETY RISING IN MY CHEST (MARY OLIVER, RICHARD ROHR, LEWIS THOMAS, MATT LICATA)

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Bill Britton under Change Yourself First, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

“We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal.”  Lewis Thomas

“I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers

flow in the right direction, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not how shall

I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,

can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows

can do it and I am, well,

hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,

am I going to get rheumatism,

lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And gave it up. And took my old body

and went out into the morning,

and sang.”

“I Worried” by Mary Oliver

“Your sadness, your loneliness, your fear, and your anxiety are not mistakes. They are not obstacles on your path. They are the path. The freedom you are longing for is not found in the eradication of these, but in the information they carry. You need not transcend anything here, but be willing to become deeply intimate with your lived, embodied experience. …Nothing is missing, nothing is out of place, nothing need be sent away.” Matt Licata

“…we dare not get rid of the pain before we have learned what it has to teach us. …Fixing something doesn’t usually transform us. We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves. We avoid God, who works in the darkness – where we are not in control! Maybe that is the secret: relinquishing control. We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning.” Richard Rohr

“Do not be afraid, little flock,

for your Father has been pleased

to give you the kingdom.“

Jesus, in Luke 12:32

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

Are you learning “to stay with the pain of life” rather than attempting to fix things that shouldn’t be fixed?

What is your sadness, loneliness or anxiety trying to tell you?

We’ve all seen worrying “come to nothing.” Can you remember that from the start, and just go “out into the morning” and sing?

Abba, save my soul from being so steeped in care that I pass heedless and unseeing when even the thorn bush by the wayside is aflame with the glory of God.

4.  In the silence - YouTube

5. 

Day by Day Hymn, Onscreen Lyrics (HD) - YouTube

6.  happy birthday 

https://youtu.be/q5CUnuE3WRs

Pray Share and Chat 6/23/2021 Finding God in Nature

The focus of today's meeting is on finding God in Nature.

1.  Mindful: A Meditation Series (Growing Gratitude Guided Meditation) - YouTube

2.  Video God whispers 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zf_0jzPQ8lo

3.  Narrative

A Reflection by Mike Lorenzo

In Awe Before God | Loyola Press

I wasn’t raised a Catholic, I wasn’t raised anything, but that doesn’t mean I never saw God before my eventual conversion. Lately I’ve been reflecting back on a particular experience I had quite often when I was in middle school. I would walk past a large oak tree on my way to class. It was a perfectly normal tree, nothing special, but some days, when the wind was blowing and the sun was streaming through the rustling branches, it became something so much more. I felt that in the middle of all this ordinary, there was extraordinary. As I took in the scene I was always left with the unshakeable and hard to place feeling that I was meant for more than South Texas suburbia going through its motions. As I grew older I came to discover that what I was feeling was the presence of God working in my life.

We’re invited to take time to unplug from our busy lives and experience God’s presence all around us everyday. When we make this an intentional practice we begin to see God everywhere, not just in Church on Sunday. We’re constantly affirmed by the knowledge that someone much greater than ourselves loves us. God’s love is written in everything, the rustling of trees, good times with friends, or a cup of coffee in the morning. He created us to live a life of awe with him; all that we need to do is open our eyes and look for it.

---

Mike Lorenzo

Mike Lorenzo is a proud convert to Catholicism, a passionate speaker, and a musician.

4. Prayer.

The Canticle of the Creatures

by St. Francis of Assisi, 1225 AD

 

Most High, all-powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, and the honour, and all blessing,
To You alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no human is worthy to mention Your name. 

Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day and through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour;
and bears a likeness to You, Most High One.

 

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven You formed them clear and precious and beautiful.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather,
through whom You give sustenance to Your creatures.

 

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom You light the night,
and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.

Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains and governs us,
and who produces varied fruit with coloured flowers and herbs.

 

Praised be You, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your love,
and bear infirmity and tribulation.
Blessed are those who endure in peace
for by You, Most High, shall they be crowned.

Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no one living can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those whom death will find in Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.

Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks
and serve Him with great humility.

 

www.franciscans.ie

5.  Meditation music 

Beautiful Relaxing Music • Peaceful Piano Music & Guitar Music | Sunny Mornings by Peder B. Helland - YouTube

6.  nature and haikus 2 - YouTube features haikus with photos of associate's garden.

7.  Song Open the Eyes of My Heart - YouTube

A Perplexing Gift

 

A tiny little candy

called chocolate kisses.

I got one.

The usual pointed chocolate wrapped in

tin foil with the label

sticking out.

I was in our kitchen

busy preparing dinner

when little Luca

came and handed it to me.

No explanation. Just out of the blue

he came while he was playing.

I took it and placed it on the

kitchen island.

It is there up to now.

The little chocolate kiss

intrigued me.

Was it a gesture of sharing,

of thoughtfulness?

I even extrapolated it to

Oh my he really loves me!

I was touched.  But what if it is not what

I think it is.

At this point, we can believe

what we want.

So I will relish his show of love,

Love it.

I have not eaten that piece of candy.

Might never will.

Luca with his sister Maddie posing during
his graduation from pre-school.

pray share chat 6/16/2021 focus corpus christi

 

1. calming meditation

Daily Calm | 10 Minute Mindfulness Meditation | Be Present - YouTube

2.  miracle of grace (bread of life)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c36nJVj3Yps

3.  Narrative 

Richard Rohr The Body of Christ Monday, April 6, 2015

The first of Paul's dialectics that I want to point out is the philosophical problem of the one and the many. How do you reconcile the seemingly endless diversity and any final or true unity between the many things in the universe? I am convinced that only the mystical and non-dual mind can equally honor the individual and the whole at the same time.   Paul resolves this paradox through his doctrine of the Body of Christ: "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ" (1 Corinthians 12:12). He goes on to illustrate his point by saying that some members are an eye, some a foot, some a hand. I, Richard, am just a mouth. You too are a part of the body of Christ. The only way you are going to really respect your own and others' full and divine character is by recognizing we all participate in one overarching unity.   This leads Paul to a very concrete missionary strategy of building living communities which can produce a visible and believable message. (This is quite different from the post-Protestant regression into mere individual salvation.) Paul is a collective, corporate thinker, who creates corporate audio-visual aids to spread the message. Yet for centuries we've interpreted his message as if he is speaking about individuals. This has made Paul seem more like a mere moralist rather than the mystic he is. Mystics tend to see things in wholes, we get preoccupied with the parts--and never get beyond that.   Paul seems to think, and I agree with him, that corporate evil can only be overcome or confronted with corporate good. Paul uses primitive yet very powerful words for the negative side of corporations, institutions, and nations--in various translations: "thrones, dominations, principalities, and powers" (Colossians 1:16). These are not "bad angels" as much as collective evil attitudes. However, because they are so widely shared, they no longer look like evil. Paul is pointing to the mass consciousness or collective cultural moods that control us, things we can't see when we're inside of them. And, because of this, and the way we are programmed to think, the powers and principalities are hard to resist.   For instance, I've never heard a single sermon on the tenth commandment--"Thou shalt not covet . . . anything that is thy neighbor's" (Exodus 20:17)--because coveting goods is the only game in town. It's called capitalism, consumerism, and advertising! It would be downright un-American to criticize any of these. In Paul's thinking, those big cultural blindnesses can only be overcome by a group of people living and affirming and supporting one another in an alternative lifestyle. The individual can hardly live an alternative consciousness by himself or herself. The pressure to conform is too great, and the eyes (and words) to see it are just not there. It is no surprise that the word "non-violence" did not come into usage till the early 20th century.

Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 9 (CD); and St. Paul: The Misunderstood Mystic (MP3 download)

4.  Prayer

Christ Has No Body

Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
Compassion on this world
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good
Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world
Yours are the hands
Yours are the feet
Yours are the eyes
You are His body
Christ has no body now on earth but yours

#StTeresaOfAvila #WeAreChristsBody #ChristHasNoBody #prayer

5.  meditation music

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UPVoeWOokz8

6.  eat this bread taize song

Eat This Bread (Drink This Cup) | Taizé Song | Corpus Christi | Catholic Hymn | Sunday 7pm Choir - YouTube

Paula's Prayer Meeting 6/9/2021 We are Companions

 

We are Companions on the Journey

“The quality of our life together is the quality

of our mission.  What we are to each other we

are to the world.”    (Baden)

   

Matthew 5:15-16

The Message

Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God.

 

 

Pilgrim Companions - YouTube

 

My craving for Pancit Malabon came when my sister Bebeng showed off the dishes she prepared for her and Kuya Jun's celebration of their wedding anniversary.  It is a popular noodle dish from Malabon, Metro Manila Philippines where I am originally from.  It is made with ground pork, garlic, achuete, fish sauce, pork rind and calamansi juice.  My younger sister Menchie joked that I could perhaps use cauliflower walnut meat for the ground pork.  I shared with her the YouTube video of my recent demo online on the use of this meat substitute which I conducted for the Plant Based Pittsburgh group I belonged to.  

I decided to give it a try.  I have expanded the use of this versatile meat substitute for another Filipino dish menudo and the Italian dish Bolognese.  Of course, it is used for making tacos as it was originally conceived to be used.  

I was happy with the result.  It has the citrusy, salty and garlicky flavor of the original.   I used lots of dry minced garlic, soy sauce instead of fish sauce and lemon juice instead of calamansi juice.  The spices in the cauliflower walnut meat enhanced the dish and helped flavored it.  It definitely took me back home to Malabon.   

Vegan Pancit Malabon

2 cups cauliflower walnut meat (recipe below)
4 tbsp Soy sauce
Lemon juice from 1 1/2 lemon
3 tbsp garlic flakes
1 cup vegetable broth
1 cup chopped celery

2 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 1/4 cup water to form a slurry
2 stalks green onions chopped
8 oz rice noodles, cooked and rinsed (I cooked mine in the Instant Pot with 4 cups water and 1/2 tsp salt at high pressure for 1 minute and 4 minutes natural pressure release) 

Add the cauliflower meat, soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic flakes, vegetable broth and chopped celery in a skillet and heat the mixture till the broth boils.  Add the cornstarch/water slurry and stir till mixture thickens.

Add the cooked and rinsed rice noodles to the mixture.  Garnish with chopped green onions.

Cauliflower Walnut Meat

Makes about 4-5 cups

Adapted From the website Pinch of Yum

3 cups cauliflower florets 

2 tbsp chipotle peppers from can, chopped

2 cups raw walnuts

1 tbsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. (You can skip this step if not baking).  

  

Place all the ingredients in a large food processor. If you have a medium sized one, do it in two batches. Pulse till the ingredients are blended and the mixture is mealy in texture. Transfer the mixture into a parchment lined pan and spread the mixture.  Bake for 45 minutes and stir half way.  (You can skip this baking step and use it as is).

pray share chat june 2, 2021 focus on the trinity

 Our focus today is on the Trinity

1. calming meditation

Daily Calm | 10 Minute Mindfulness Meditation | Be Present - YouTube

2.  Song

Trinity Song - Bing video

3. Narrative

Trinity
Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Just as some Eastern fathers saw Christ’s human/divine nature as one dynamic unity, they also saw the Trinity as an Infinite Dynamic Flow. The Western Church tended to have a more static view of both Christ and the Trinity—more a mathematical conundrum than an invitation to new consciousness. In our attempts to explain the Trinitarian mystery, the Western Church overemphasized the individual names—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—but not so much the quality of the relationships between them, which is where all the power and meaning lies! So, let’s not spend too much time arguing about the gender of the Three. The real and essential point is how the three “persons” relate to one another: infinite outpouring and infinite receiving.

The Mystery of God as Trinity invites us into full participation with God—a flow, a relationship, a waterwheel of always outpouring love. God is a verb much more than a noun. Some Christian mystics taught that all of creation is being taken back into this flow of eternal life, almost as if we are a “Fourth Person” of the Trinity, or as Jesus put it, “so that where I am you also may be” (John 14:3).

The Cappadocian Fathers of the fourth century first developed this theology, though they readily admitted the Trinity is a wonderful mystery that can never fully be understood with the rational mind, but can only be known through love, prayer, and suffering. Contemplation of God as Trinity was made-to-order to undercut the dualistic mind. This view of Trinity invites us to interactively experience God as transpersonal (“Father”), personal (“Christ”), and even impersonal (“Holy Spirit”)—all at once.

The Cappadocian teaching moved to the West but was not broadly communicated. We find an active Trinitarianism in many Catholic mystics (e.g., Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, John of the Cross, Teresa of Ávila). Scottish theologian Richard of St. Victor (1110–1173) reflected this early theology. He taught at great length that for God to be truth, God had to be one; for God to be love, God had to be two; and for God to be joy, God had to be three! [1]

True Trinitarian theology offers the soul endless creativity—an open horizon. Trinitarian thinkers do not seem to have much interest in things like hell, punishment, or any notion of earning or losing. They are only overwhelmed by infinite abundance and flow.

Our supposed logic has to break down before we can comprehend the nature of the universe and the bare beginnings of the nature of God. Paraphrasing physicist Niels Bohr, the doctrine of the Trinity is saying that God is not only stranger than we think, but stranger than we can think. Perhaps much of the weakness of many Christian doctrines and dogmas is that we’ve tried to understand them with a logical or rational mind instead of through love, prayer, and participation itself. In the end, only lovers seem to know what is going on inside of God. To all others, God remains an impossible and distant secret, just like the galaxies.

References:
[1] Richard of St. Victor, Book Three of the Trinity, trans. Grover A. Zinn (Paulist Press: 1979). My summary of his conclusions.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Shape of God: Deepening the Mystery of the Trinity (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2004), CD, DVD, MP3 download.

4.  Prayer from this site.

Everlasting and Triune God, I consecrate myself wholly to you today,

Let all my days offer you ceaseless praise, my hands move to the rhythm of your impulses, my feet be swift in your service, my voice sing constantly of you, my lips proclaim your message, my eyes perceive you everywhere, and my ears be attuned to your inspirations.

May my intellect be filled with your wisdom, my will be moved by your beauty, my heart be enraptured with your love, and my soul be flooded with your grace.

5. meditation music

https://youtu.be/FMrtSHAAPhM

6.  Holy God, we praise Thy Name --- Faith of our Fathers - YouTube