My picky taster, my husband Bob, ate most of these burgers, today thus I call it his favorite burger. He even reserved the last one left. I went through several recipes and this one finally hit the mark. It is moist in the inside and kind of crispy due to the oats used as the binder. I used salsa instead of the catsup I have used previously in another recipe.
Devotional practices have opened
believers’ hearts for millennia, and we now understand the mind-body-heart
connection within us in a deeper way. Researcher and therapist Dr. Alane
Daugherty suggests a body-based practice to create a sense of heartfelt awareness:
The force of deep love, compassion and other heartfelt emotions
can literally unite our brain, our heart, and all of the cells in our body. By
experiencing what these heartfelt states are like inside of us we can then
activate the dormant impulses, cultivate them, and embody them in an integrated
way of being. This union feels harmonious and expansive; like we are all at
once in touch with the depths of our being, and connected to a much larger way
of living. Done intentionally and routinely they form an even greater union,
become our primary way of operating, and profoundly change our world and
us. . . .
[Heartful awareness] is the momentary choice, moment after
moment, to let our truest sense emerge into our lived reality and intersect
with the outside world. It allows us to be the best that we can be, in whatever
we do. . . .
We invite you to try these practices from Daugherty:
The following are suggestions for specific tangible ways you
might implement heartful awareness into your everyday life. . . .
Pay attention to attention. Stop and
pause several moments during the day and just notice where your attention is.
Make an overt intention, when you are authentically capable, to become
heartfully engaged with yourself, your surroundings, or others. . . .
Savor what you already have. The ‘spiral of becoming’ shows us that we
physiologically change to any state we are routinely in. When we are already in
states of heartful engagement, focused attention and awareness to ‘cement’
these states further imprints them in our cellular memory.
Micro-moments add up! Momentary choices of engagement make profound shifts.
They re-wire our neural nets and habitual ways of being, create oxytocin-rich
changes in our blood chemistry, as well as dopamine and serotonin the hopeful
outlook neurotransmitters, and foundationally change our perception to one of
expansiveness and possibility. . . .
Continually tap into the deepest sense of who you are and let that lead. The
more moments we spend resting in our deepest potential or connected to our
Inner Being, the more they become our primary ‘operating system.’ Pay
attention, and shift when you can. When you cannot, hold yourself in a place of
loving-kindness and awareness, and promise those ‘parts’ healing attention when
you are able. Offer the love and support to yourself, as you would a best
friend.
Alane Daugherty, From
Mindfulness to Heartfulness: A Journey of Transformation through the Science of
Embodiment (Balboa Press: 2014), 111, 112, 149, 150.
My granddaughter Maddie loves these bites even without the cocoa, thus I named them after her. She even brought some home with her last time she visited us. My picky taster, my husband, loves both those with and without cocoa. It is based on this Pinch of Yum recipe.
10 pitted dates (if dried out, cut roughly to pieces or the food processor will be jumping)
1 cupwalnuts
1/2cupoats
1/4cupflax meal
1/4cuppeanut butter
2 tablespoons cocoa if you like
2 tablespoonsmaple syrup
1 teaspoonvanilla
pinch of salt
INSTRUCTIONS
Mix all the ingredients in the food processor until it is smooth with some nuts still visible,
Roll into balls with help of small ice cream scoop. Mine was not perfectly round I would admit but you can do better than that.
I store them in the fridge but I read they are pretty good frozen.
Nutrition Facts
Servings: 24
Amount per serving
Calories
75
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 5g
6%
Saturated Fat 0.5g
3%
Cholesterol 0mg
0%
Sodium 21mg
1%
Total Carbohydrate 6.5g
2%
Dietary Fiber 1.4g
5%
Total Sugars 3.5g
Protein 2.6g
Vitamin D 0mcg
0%
Calcium 9mg
1%
Iron 1mg
4%
Potassium 98mg
2%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calorie a day is used for general nutrition advice.
Richard Rohr Daily Meditation: What Kind of God Do We Believe In?
Center for Action and Contemplation
Tuesday, November 30th, 2021
Week Forty-Eight: Images of God
What Kind of God Do We Believe In?
Author and Benedictine sister Joan Chittister catalogs how some of the most common images of God influence our behavior and reminds us that we can choose more helpful and loving images.
In the long light of human history, then, it is not belief in God that sets us apart. It is the kind of God in which we choose to believe that in the end makes all the difference. Some believe in a God of wrath and become wrathful with others as a result. Some believe in a God who is indifferent to the world and, when they find themselves alone, as all of us do at some time or another, shrivel up and die inside from the indifference they feel in the world around them. Some believe in a God who makes traffic lights turn green and so become the children of magical coincidence . . . . Some believe in a God of laws and crumble in spirit and psyche when they themselves break them or else become even more stern in demanding from others standards they themselves cannot keep. They conceive of God as the manipulator of the universe, rather than its blessing-Maker. . . .
I have known all of those Gods in my own life. They have all failed me. I have feared God and been judgmental of others. I have used God to get me through life and, as a result, failed to take steps to change life myself. I have been blind to the God within me and so, thinking of God as far away, have failed to make God present to others. I have allowed God to be mediated to me through images of God foreign to the very idea of God: God the puppeteer, God the potentate, God the persecutor make a mockery of the very definition of God. I have come to the conclusion, after a lifetime of looking for God, that such a divinity is a graven image of ourselves, that such a deity is not a god big enough to believe in. Indeed, it is the God in whom we choose to believe that determines the rest of life for us. In our conception of the nature of God lies the kernel of the spiritual life. Made in the image of God, we grow in the image of the God we make for ourselves. . . .
Chittister invites us to the prayerful inner work necessary to discover the God we really believe in, for the sake of encountering the true and living God:
Until I discover the God in which I believe, I will never understand another thing about my own life. If my God is harsh judge, I will live in unquenchable guilt. If my God is Holy Nothingness, I will live a life of cosmic loneliness. If my God is taunt and bully, I will live my life impaled on the pin of a grinning giant. If my God is life and hope, I will live my life in fullness overflowing forever.
Joan Chittister, In Search of Belief (Liguori Publications: 1999), 20–21, 22.
4. Prayer
Lord, thank you for all you do out of your great love for us. I pray that my heart seeks you and desires to see your goodness in all of life’s circumstances. May I always trust in you even when I cannot see what you are doing. Help me more and more see your goodness right in front of me.
