How can you not

 

https://youtu.be/uyWt8NV53r0?si=3HkH_klTIdKhnNCO

https://youtu.be/uumInvT4t9Y?si=1hzq3qnb9w8b2CAn

https://youtu.be/70JD5YTemJc?si=y3MXtLJw6WfNImhe

The Natural World: Week 1 Summary

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Summary: Sunday, March 4-Friday, March 9, 2018

If I can somehow let my “roots and tendrils” reconnect me with the “givens” of life—not the ideas about life, but the givens, the natural world, what is—I experience extraordinary grounding, reconnection, healing, and even revelation. (Sunday)

Soul is the blueprint inside of every living thing that tells it what it is and what it can become. When we meet anything at that level, we will respect, protect, and love it. (Monday)

The whole universe in its wholeness more perfectly shares in and represents the divine goodness than any one creature by itself. —Thomas Aquinas (Tuesday)

From the beginning of the Bible to the end, it is clear that a loving God includes all of creation in God’s Kingdom. (Wednesday)

Jesus taught that if we would “first seek God’s Reign” (Matthew 6:33), and obey his command to “love God and love one another” (Matthew 22:37-40), all the rest would take care of itself. We would no longer defy the laws of nature but seek to live in harmony and sustainability with Earth and all her creatures. (Thursday)

A life of nonviolence leads to oneness with creation and her creatures. —John Dear (Friday)

 

Practice: Mindful Living

John Dear invites us into a peaceful, nonviolent way of living with creation:

To grow in deeper, loving awareness of our sisters and brothers, the beautiful creatures, and wonders of creation, we practice the art of mindfulness. That means we try not to live in the past or stew over the future. We give ourselves to the present moment of peace and return to the gentleness of our breath as a way to return to the present moment, the eternal now. The Buddhists teach mindful living, mindful eating, mindful walking, mindful working. Every moment becomes an opportunity to step into the present moment of peace.

“We are speaking of an attitude of the heart,” Pope Francis writes, “one which approaches life with serene attentiveness, which is capable of being fully present to someone without thinking of what comes next, which accepts each moment as a gift from God to be lived to the full. Jesus taught us this attitude when he invited us to contemplate the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, or when seeing the rich young man and knowing his restlessness, ‘he looked at him with love’ (Mk 10:21). He was completely present to everyone and to everything, and in this way, he showed us the way to overcome that unhealthy anxiety which makes us superficial, aggressive and compulsive consumers.” [1]

Putting on the mind of the nonviolent Christ and practicing his nonviolence, we learn to contemplate the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. When he rose from the dead, he gave his friends the gift of resurrection peace, breathed on them, and said receive the Holy Spirit. He sent them on a global mission of peace and nonviolence. We try to follow Jesus by welcoming that gift of resurrection peace, breathing in his Holy Spirit, and walking in his footsteps in his kingdom of nonviolence. In that mindfulness, everyone shines like the sun.

We recognize every human being as a sister and brother, every creature as a gift from God, and Mother Earth as a treasure to be honored and cared for. We too learn to walk mindfully on earth in the present moment of peace. As we do, we not only non-cooperate with injustice and environmental destruction, model gospel nonviolence, and seek justice and peace for everyone, we help everyone step into the present moment of peace, the kingdom of God. Along the way, we discover that we have already entered eternal life. Eternity has begun. We are here, on earth, in the peaceful presence of the Creator.

References:
[1] Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 226, w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html.

John Dear, They Will Inherit the Earth: Peace and Nonviolence in a Time of Climate Change (Orbis Books: 2018), 123-124.

For Further Study:

John Dear, They Will Inherit the Earth: Peace and Nonviolence in a Time of Climate Change (Orbis Books: 2018)

Richard Rohr, A New Cosmology: Nature as the First Bible (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2009), CD, MP3 download

Richard Rohr and Bill Plotkin, Soul Centering through Nature: Becoming a True Human Adult (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2011), CD, MP3 download

Richard Rohr, The Soul, the Natural World, and What Is (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2009), MP3 download

Prayer of st Teresa of avila

Grant that in all things, great and small, today and all the days of my life, I may do whatever You require of me. Help me respond to the slightest prompting of Your Grace, so that I may be Your trustworthy instrument for Your honor. May Your Will be done in time and in eternity by me, in me, and through me. Amen.

https://youtu.be/ZA1GvzqVztE?si=DaZ801o4yxj3Fzx0

https://youtu.be/79BjHa1r-L8?si=NyqJqPK4ON3twJEm

holy spirit come and journaling

 https://youtu.be/tiAfUrU9Pvg?si=O3cMvuKpObYZLG8H

https://youtu.be/ch-b1VkttqQ?si=morBKmufSKLYqVDL

Quotes on  journaling 

https://www.silkandsonder.com/blogs/news/32-of-the-most-famous-quotes-about-journaling-and-writing

https://www.fillingthejars.com/quotes-about-journaling/

Hi Lulu,

FYI - The methods that I learned are taught in the Ira Progoff Weekend Journaling Workshops that were taught at Mercyhurst College in Erie for a fee. Since that all is under Copyright, I found another book that covers many of the same techniques. This book is entitled The New Diary by Tristine Rainer. I used this book to do my own workshops and just taught the techniques used. All that is required is to buy the book (that is actually optional bur advisable) and a 3-ring binder, with notepaper, dividers (the Progoff Journal has 20), and pen. You can start out with fewer dividers since we may not go into every technique. In the Progoff Journal there are 5 Dividers with categories in each section. The 5 Dividers are:

• Period Log (with 2 categories}
• Dialogue Dimensions (Special Personal Sections with 5 categories}
• Depth Dimension {Ways of Symbolic Contact with 5 categories}
• Life/Time Dimensions (Inner Perspectives with 4 categories}
• Meditation Log {Entrance Meditations, Spiritual Positioning, and Inner Process Entries with

https://youtu.be/OoPuG9Dx8UQ?si=8ja14t83Uv6-yeTF

Unplanned

 

Let it be unplanned 

Melody  beautiful

Who knew. Just trust. Be. 

Beholding a Forever Friendship

 

email threads from rose to connie 

laced with love

exposition of 65 years of friendship

one spouse gone but not forever

but etched in the stories told

in the collection of photos

in the memories shared

the zoom memorial

lovingly crafted

made possible

by this love

shared dreams at the university

all physics majors

then wonderful journey

dates, then marriages

ph d's obtained, collaborative papers

laughter through the years

births,  children, grandchildren.

tears are falling as i write

i just realized that i just

saw the face of God

in their lasting friendship

the love.

Glorious path

 

Color my journey 

To the unknown, to enjoy

The uncertainty  

Special Delivery

 

Joy overload. Wow

In a honda. Typical. 

Hanoi. Resourceful. 

Transformation

 1.  Meditation

https://youtu.be/rN4DcdvFLgY?si=W-NyCePR0rl__FwC

2.  Song

https://youtu.be/ZixDVizRrRI?si=DsZUaNwSAyCcxson

3.  Narrative

https://wmpaulyoung.com/transformation-more-than-a-change-of-mind/

Transformation is More Than a Change of Mind.

Richard Rohr

For much of my life, I’ve been trying to facilitate transformation—conversion, change of consciousness, change of mind—with various strategies and formats.

The transformed mind lets you see how you process what’s coming at you. It’s of supreme value because it allows you to step back from your own personal processor so you can be more honest about what is really happening to you.

The Achilles heel of organized religion might be that we tend to tell people what to see instead of teaching them how to see. The thing we often miss is that…

Transformation is not merely a change of morals, group affiliation, or belief system—but a change at the very heart of the way you receive, hear, and pass on each moment.

Do you use the moment to strengthen your own ego position or do you use the moment to enter into a much broader seeing and connecting? Those are two very different ways of seeing.

In this light, I offer three observations on the process of transformation.

1) True transformation is the process of letting go.

The word “change” normally refers to new beginnings. But transformation, the mystery we’re examining, more often happens not when something new begins but when something old falls apart. The pain of something old falling apart—chaos—invites the soul to listen at a deeper level. It invites and sometimes forces the soul to go to a new place because the old place is falling apart.

Otherwise, most of us would never go to new places. The mystics use many words to describe this chaos: fire, darkness, death, emptiness, abandonment, trial, the Evil One. Whatever it is, it does not feel good and it does not feel like God. You will do anything to keep the old thing from falling apart.

This is when you need patience, guidance, and the freedom to let go instead of tightening your controls and certitudes. Perhaps Jesus is describing this phenomenon when he says, “It is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:14). Not accidentally, he mentions this narrow road right after teaching the Golden Rule. Jesus knows how much letting go it takes to “treat others as you would like them to treat you” (7:12).

Transformation usually includes a disconcerting reorientation. Change can either help people to find a new meaning, or it can cause people to close down and turn bitter. The difference is determined by the quality of your inner life, what we call your “spirituality.”

Change of itself just happens; but spiritual transformation must become an actual process of letting go, living in the confusing dark space for a while, and allowing yourself to be spit up on a new and unexpected shore. You can see why Jonah in the belly of the whale is such an important symbol for many Jews and Christians. 

2) True transformation risks even the attachments of love.

The Christian way is to risk the attachments of love—and then keep growing in what it actually means to love.

As we start trying to love, we begin to realize that we’re actually not loving very well. We are mostly meeting our own needs. The word for this is “codependency.” This kind of love is still impure and self-seeking and thus is not really love at all. So we have to pull back and learn the great art of detachment, which is not aloofness, but the purifying of attachment.

Our religion is neither solely detachment nor solely attachment; it’s a dance between the two. It’s neither entirely isolation, as symbolized by the desert, nor is it complete engagement, as symbolized by the city. Jesus moves back and forth between desert and city. In the city, he feels himself losing perspective, love, and center; so Jesus goes out to the desert to discover the real again. And when Jesus is in the desert, his passionate union with the Father drives him back to the pain of the city.

The transformative dance between attachment and detachment is sometimes called the Third Way. It is the middle way between fight and flight, as Walter Wink describes it. [1] Some prefer to take on the world: to fight it, to change it, fix it, and rearrange it. Others deny there is a problem at all; it suits their needs as it is. “Everything is beautiful,” they say and look the other way. Both instincts avoid holding the tension, the pain, and the essentially tragic nature of human existence.

The contemplative & transformative stance is the Third Way. We stand in the middle, neither taking the world on from another power position nor denying it for fear of the pain it will bring. We hold the dark side of reality and the pain of the world until it transforms us, knowing that we are both complicit in the evil and can participate in wholeness and holiness. Once we can stand in that third spacious way, neither directly fighting nor denying and fleeing, we are in the place of grace out of which genuine newness can come. This is where creativity and new forms of life and healing emerge.

3) True transformation causes our motivation to foundationally change.

From a religious perspective, a conversion experience is an experience of an Absolute. And once you’ve experienced a True Absolute, everything else is relativized, including yourself! Once you’ve experienced fullness, you don’t need to keep seeking “that which does not satisfy” (Isaiah 55:2).

Authentic God experience always leads you toward service, toward the depths, the edge, the outsider, the lower, the suffering, and the simple. What you once thought was “the center” has shown itself not to be the center of anything. If there is not such an earthquake in both your heart and mind, I do not think you can rightly speak of spiritual conversion.

Transformation begins with a new experience of a new Absolute, and, as a result, your social positioning gradually changes on almost all levels. Little by little you will allow your politics, economics, classism, sexism, racism, homophobia and all superiority games to lose their one-time rationale. You just “think” and “feel” differently about most things. If this does not happen in very specific ways, I have no reason to believe you have been converted.

Your motivation foundationally changes from security, status, and sabotage to generosity, humility, and cooperation.

If you do not want to go there, you’d better stay away from the Holy One.

*These thoughts were originally adapted from three of Richard’s Daily Meditations. Sign up for them here.

4. Prayer

I pray that I am transformed by the renewing of my mind that I may learn to understand Your will for my life, which is good and pleasing and perfect. I thank You for my spiritual growth and transformation, help me focus on the godly values and ethical attitudes that will help me flourish spiritually, emotionally and mentally, Amen.

5,  Meditation

https://youtu.be/OoPuG9Dx8UQ?si=xTofaS2RQl3BfL2B

6.  Song

https://youtu.be/bg7Oyox2cDE?si=9KPo0c--6pvzJSgc

Paula's Prayer Meeting 1/10/2023

 https://youtu.be/cPI4hCdV4is?si=mgrXTDbL2TkQSXym

Insight

 

     Quiet Revelation

 

Follow

 

          Be Brave

 

 

For Those Who Have Far to Travel 

 

If you could see the journey whole

you might never undertake it;

might never dare the first step

that propels you

from the place you have known

toward the place you know not.

 

Call it one of the mercies of the road:

that we see it only by stages

as it opens before us,

as it comes into our keeping

step by single step.

 

There is nothing for it but to go

and by our going take the vows

the pilgrim takes:

      to be faithful to the next step;

      to rely on more than the map;

      to heed the signposts of intuition and dream;

      to follow the star that only you will recognize;

      to keep an open eye for the wonders that attend       

      the path;

      to press on beyond distractions

      beyond fatigue

      beyond what would tempt you from the way.

 

There are vows that only you will know;

the secret promises for your particular path

and the new ones you will need to make

when the road is revealed by turns

you could not have foreseen.

 

Keep them, break them, make them again:

each promise becomes part of the path;

each choice creates the road

that will take you to the place

where at last you will kneel to offer the gift

most needed— the gift that only you can give—

before turning to go home by another way.

Jan Richardson

 

 

 

 

Beautiful burden

 

Snow! Beautiful a

burden. Gasped as they trickle  

Shoveling. Forgot. 

Sisters Bonding

We talked, cooked, ate, laughed.
Weaving memories till we
meet again. Repeat.

Memories

I. Meditation 

 https://youtu.be/EvC1eMA-Q64?si=p13z1ONcZIeJOLGr

2. Song

https://youtu.be/dyibmm1OQ_Y?si=RV3hwI0zgnzijSTQ

3.  Narrative 

📸 Look at this post on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/share/p/jtaa2Jchcd2vRMDo/?mibextid=WC7FNe

Uses of Memory

I AM INCLINED to believe that God's chief purpose in giving us memory is to enable us to go back in time so that if we didn't play those roles right the first time round, we can still have another go at it now. We cannot undo our old mistakes or their consequences any more than we can erase old wounds that we have both suffered and inflicted, but through the power that memory gives us of thinking, feeling, imagining our way back through time we can at long last finally finish with the past in the sense of removing its power to hurt us and other people and to stunt our growth as human beings.  

The sad things that happened long ago will always remain part of who we are just as the glad and gracious things will too, but instead of being a burden of guilt, recrimination, and regret that make us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead. It is through memory that we are able to reclaim much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose and be brought to life by and healed by all these years later. 

-Originally published in Telling Secrets

PROPHETIC HOPE

Remembering Our Hope

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Richard Rohr reflects on the prophetic task of integrating our individual and collective memories, which creates the conditions for hope within us:

Memory is very often the key to understanding. Memory integrates, reconciles, and puts the individual members into perspective as a part of the whole. For us to recognize what God is doing and therefore who God is, we must pray like Paul “that your love may more and more abound, both in understanding and wealth of experience” (Philippians 1:9).

Our remembrance that God has remembered us will be the highway into the future, the straight path of the Lord promised by John the Baptizer [see Luke 3:3–6]. Where there is no memory, there will be no pain, but neither will there be hope. Memory is the basis of both the pain and the rejoicing. We need to re-member both of them; it seems that we cannot have one without the other. Do not be too quick to “heal all of those memories,” unless that means also feeling them deeply and taking them all into our salvation history. God seems to be calling us to suffer the whole of reality, to remember the good along with the bad. Perhaps that is the course of the journey toward new sight and new hope. Memory creates a readiness for salvation, an emptiness to receive love, and a fullness to enjoy it.

Only in an experience and a remembering of the good do we have the power to stand against this death [caused by evil]. As Baruch tells Jerusalem, we must “rejoice that you are remembered by God” [5:5]. In that remembrance we have new sight, and the evil can be absorbed and blotted out.

It takes a prophet of sorts, one who sees clearly, one who has traveled the highway before, one who remembers everything, to guide us beyond our blocked, selective, and partial remembering: “Jerusalem, take off your robe of mourning and misery; put on the splendor of glory from God forever” [Baruch 5:1]. Choose your friends carefully and listen to those who speak truth to you and help you remember all things.

Ask God for companions (sometimes Jesus alone!) who will walk the highway of remembering with you, filling in the valleys and leveling the mountains and hills, making the winding ways straight and the rough ways smooth. Then humankind shall see the salvation of God.

The repentance that the Baptist calls us to is one of remembering, and of remembering together, and then bearing the consequences of that remembrance. It is no easy matter, for the burden of re-membering is great. But we must try for the sake of truth.

So “Up Jerusalem! Stand upon the heights; look to the east and see” your whole life. See what God has given freely. [Our] hope lies hidden in the past. “And rejoice that you are remembered by God.”

Reference: Richard Rohr, Near Occasions of Grace (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993), 3–5.

4. Prayer 

Free us to be present to Your caressing presence right now. Jesus, heal our crippled memories that don't allow us to climb the stairs of freedom and wholeness.

5. Meditation 

https://youtu.be/LHPRaz5TlQ4?si=xFZ9bCwXGAk1ljIe

6.  Song

https://youtu.be/XQan9L3yXjc?si=C6B_wDofs6H1sTq1