I know I know they grow

 

I know I know they grow 

As in grow up

But I do not want them losing

the impish innocence

that dependence

even annoying defiance

That cuteness

Cuddliness

Gone gone those days

Sad am I and annoyed 

especially when smart-alecky quips made

Like the conversations i heard from the backseat of my car

     luca:  people get lazy when they get old.  like lola maddie asked luca..

And this

     Luca:  she does  not do anything.  Maddie:  she does zumba

Btw fb survey:  how do you know when people are old

   one 7th grader:  they do zumba

there you go.  wisdom?? from luca confirmed.  btw i was mad.  

     When i pick him up at bus stop guess how he greets me:  fake mama  what!

Last summer i heard them singing what i thought was a song they learned in plum daycare. It turned out a taylor swift song bad blood. They are swifties and actually just been to her concert recently. They love this song and sang it at our time  in a recent vacation in orlando and bravely in karaoke at copa loca venue at resort. See link to videos. 

now and then

The sweetness I cherish 

Thank God has not perished

Unexpected kind gestures 

       During time in Daytona when luca learned i was staying behind in the hotel suite instead of going down with them to the beach Luca gave me the clicker for the TV so i don’t get bored  

Admirable behavior when he came with me during my line dancing class at plum center  the class members adored him  

Yes we do change 

I can hear him say

Yes lola aka grandma suck it up

I am still me

Let it be. 

Transforming Spirit

 1  Prayer

2.  Meditation 

https://youtu.be/1HpkiZDyELM?si=dHDBfJCsM7dAIsD2

3.  Song

https://youtu.be/eYdJZVJMXHA?si=IB0EWy8Zlm_y45sE

4. Narrative 

Transforming Spirit

Friday, May 24, 2024

Father Richard reflects on how the Spirit’s presence can transform our lives and institutions:  

Without a conscious living in the flow of the Spirit—through us, within us, and for us—and those are the three movements—I think prayer can become merely functional. But if we live within that flow, prayer can become an experience of mystical communion. There is no problem to be solved; it’s simply enjoying what is, learning how to taste it, learning how to receive it, learning how to see God in it, and knowing that this now—whatever it is—is enough.    

When that flow is not there, church becomes overly problem-solving and practical. Sacraments without the Spirit become strategic. They become something we feel obligated to attend or belong to in order to go to heaven. Church becomes about paying fire insurance dues. We don’t really want to be there, but we go along for the ride in case the whole thing just happens to be true. I know this might be shocking to say and hear, but this kind of church deserves to die. There’s no life to it; there’s no future to it. It is not of the Spirit. It is precisely a blocking of the Spirit, but it’s disguised as if it’s spiritual.    

Outside of the Spirit, reading the Bible can also become nothing more than ego ammunition. Without the Spirit, Bible study does not lead to divine intimacy and union; rather, it can lead to self-sufficiency and confirmation about why we’re right. Instead of leading us to God, it becomes a way for us to protect ourselves and to judge and diminish other people. But when we read the scriptures inside of the energy and flow of the Spirit, the stories themselves reveal a thousand confirmations of that very pattern—people allowing the flow, people resisting and opposing the flow, and sometimes, finally being swept up by it. They become models for us that allowing the flow of the Spirit leads to new life.  

Outside of the Spirit, authority becomes domination. Inside of the Spirit, authority becomes service. Outside of the Spirit, politics becomes control. Inside of the Spirit, leadership is something we know is given to us to offer to others: not authority over people but authority to call forth the presence of God within so they can be in the same flow and enjoy the same freedom. 

I think the simplest way to discern the presence of the Spirit is to look for where there is unity, where there’s movement toward reconciliation, for two becoming one, for enemies becoming friends. The Spirit self has no need to think of itself as better than anyone. We just live with an energy and aliveness that Paul called the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23). Our job is simply to stay inside the flow of the Spirit which is love.  

Reference:  
Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance: Exploring the Mystery of Trinity (Albuquerque, NM: Center for Action and Contemplation, 2004). Available as MP3 audio download.   

5.  Meditation 

https://youtu.be/zW3-9bUhbRw?si=vQst1393DegJ6p9O

6. Sharing 

7.  Prayer and intentions 

Prayer for Transformation

Lord, transform us – not for our benefit, but for the benefit of the world. 
Do your work in us –
molding us,
making us, 
shaping us,
changing us, 
To be the new creation you have called us to be in Jesus Christ.  

Do your work in our church –
Help us to be the body of Christ 
engaged in mission,
testifying to the power of our faith, 
witnessing to the presence of our living and loving
Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Help us surrender the church back to you. It is yours, not ours. 

Let us lay aside our personal agendas and preferences so we can be fully committed to your calling for us. 

Do your work in our world – 
Give to us a vision of transformed lives, 
neighborhoods, and communities and how we can partner with you
to see what can happen when people of faith make an eternal difference –
living and loving like Jesus and giving themselves fully –
heart, mind, and strength –
to be the very presence of Jesus Christ in our world, 
bringing blessings and redemption for the glory of God! Amen!

8.  Song

https://youtu.be/LgguVaGqHE8?si=0gdtDcToqe7A8fTY

1.  Prayer

 Lord, have mercy on me." ( The Jesus Prayer) - "Lord, thank you for this beautiful day." - "May peace and love fill my heart."

2.  Meditation

https://youtu.be/0xD57-A3cx4?si=rUhUkGWMGtJvD6_m

3.  Song

https://youtu.be/qBl2rPMP49Q?si=3Zndzd8k4vfXvXz-

4.  Narrative

Praying Simply 

Friday, May 3, 2024

Going to the deepest level of communication,  

Where back and forth has never stopped.  

Where I am not the initiator but the transmission wire itself. —Richard Rohr  

Episcopal priest and activist Adam Bucko describes a simple prayer practice that sustains him:  

One of the greatest lessons in my life about prayer came from a renegade rabbi who spent decades working on the streets of New York City rescuing kids from homelessness and prostitution—a holy man who dedicated his life to seeking God in the darkest shadows of Manhattan. He helped to make prayer real by giving me these simple instructions: “When you pray, talk to God just as if you were talking to your best friend. Tell the Holy One everything. Especially, dedicate specific times each day when you tell God about all your worries, all your hurts, all of your problems. Take off your mask and just speak. If you do that, if you really let your whole essence speak to God like that, some days there will be a lot of tears. But that’s a good thing. And when you are done telling God about your hurts, … just silently rest in God, letting God hold you. And then for the rest of the day practice joy and optimism knowing that you are God’s beloved child, knowing that you are loved, and knowing that you are carrying a great gift in your heart….”  

In some of the most difficult times in my life, this way of prayer is what saved me—telling God everything, crying with God, wrestling with God, and then when all is said and done, just resting in God, feeling loved into newness, feeling loved into aliveness and joy. [1]   

Father Richard lately has been enjoying a simple form of prayer he calls interlocution:   

God is the constant Interlocutor with the soul.  
This voice so constant and insistent, you do not know how to differentiate it from  
yourself.  YOU are so in charge here, that what you choose the voice to be, is what it is!
You are always calling the shots. 
YOU know this voice so much, you take it as a given and for granted.  
It cannot be taught, because teaching is about what you don’t know.  
You know this voice as your own interior dialogue about everything, 
so it really cannot be taught. It can only be heard.  
When I can just stop and enjoy this interlocution, it is an ENJOYMENT.  
When I refuse to recognize or honor this voice, it is an ABSENCE.  
You really do not have to try hard, nothing perfect needs to be done.  
God leaves you (the soul) in charge of what it wants—all the way to heaven and hell.  
It is a rather total surrender on God’s part. And on yours!  
Why would you resist this?  
Why not let it be Love!  
For you and everything else. [2]   

References: 
[1] Adam Bucko, Let Your Heartbreak Be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2022), 17–18.  

[2] Richard Rohr, morning meditation, February 26, 2024. Unpublished material. 

5.  meditation

https://youtu.be/AzvcCXvcsZE?si=gTo56IaCMq_8BVdK

6.  sharing

 7.  prayer and intentions

A Prayer for Gratitude

Dear God,

Thank you for your amazing power and work in our lives, thank you for your goodness and for your blessings over us. Thank you that you are able to bring hope through even the toughest of times, strengthening us for your purposes. Thank you for your great love and care. Thank you for your mercy and grace. Thank you that you are always with us and will never leave us. Thank you for your incredible sacrifice so that we might have freedom and life. Forgive us for when we don't thank you enough, for who you are, for all that you do, for all that you've given. Help us to set our eyes and our hearts on you afresh. Renew our spirits, fill us with your peace and joy. We love you and we need you, this day and every day. We give you praise and thanks, for You alone are worthy! In Jesus' Name, Amen. ~ By Debbie McDaniel

8. Song.

https://youtu.be/7LRqPaBCRVs?si=9J24g1I9X6xVKQ2H

1.  Prayer

 Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee;

blessed are thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

2.  Meditation

https://youtu.be/syx3a1_LeFo?si=UdUgdhXZujToXVO8

3.  Song

https://youtu.be/CihO7vA_ps4?si=d3xQEF9hYNchIe-c

4.  Narrative

INCARNATION

Mary’s Wholehearted Call

Friday, December 23, 2022

Public theologian Rachel Held Evans (1981–2019) found inspiration in Mary’s courageous “yes” to God:

Perhaps it is because I am neck-deep in a season of motherhood and caretaking that I am more aware than ever of the startling and profound reality that I am a Christian not because of anything I’ve done but because a teenage girl living in occupied Palestine at one of the most dangerous moments in history said yes—yes to God, yes to a wholehearted call she could not possibly understand, yes to vulnerability in the face of societal judgment . . . yes to a vision for herself and her little boy of a mission that would bring down rulers and lift up the humble, that would turn away the rich and fill the hungry with good things, that would scatter the proud and gather the lowly [see Luke 1:51–53], yes to a life that came with no guarantee of her safety or her son’s.

I know that Christians are Easter people. We are supposed to favor the story of the resurrection, which reminds us that death is never the end of God’s story. Yet I have never found that story even half as compelling as the story of the Incarnation.

Evans honors the unique role that Mary, and women everywhere, play in humanity’s physical incarnation:

It is nearly impossible to believe: God shrinking down to the size of a zygote, implanted in the soft lining of a woman’s womb. God growing fingers and toes. God kicking and hiccupping in utero. God inching down the birth canal and entering this world covered in blood, perhaps into the steady, waiting arms of a midwife. God crying out in hunger. God reaching for his mother’s breasts. God totally relaxed, eyes closed, his chubby little arms raised over his head in a posture of complete trust. God resting in his mother’s
lap. . . .

God trusted God’s very self, totally and completely and in full bodily form, to the care of a woman. God needed women for survival. Before Jesus fed us with the bread and the wine, the body and the blood, Jesus himself needed to be fed, by a woman. He needed a woman to say: “This is my body, given for you.”. . . 

To understand Mary’s humanity and her central role in Jesus’s story is to remind ourselves of the true miracle of the Incarnation—and that is the core Christian conviction that God is with us, plain old ordinary us. God is with us in our fears and in our pain, in our morning sickness and in our ear infections, in our refugee crises and in our endurance of Empire, in smelly barns and unimpressive backwater towns, in the labor pains of a new mother and in the cries of a tiny infant. In all these things, God is with us—and God is for us.

Reference:

Rachel Held Evans with Jeff Chu, Wholehearted Faith (New York: HarperOne, 2021), 3–5, 6.

Explore Further. . .

• Listen to Richard’s homily on Mary as our “Let it be!”
• Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.
• Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.

5.  Meditation

https://youtu.be/9LSJ4d5kubI?si=Ms0xcTcwdXXoF8bQ

6.  Sharing

7.  Prayer and intentions

Blessed, most pure Virgin, you chose to manifest yourself shining with life, sweetness and beauty, in the Grotto of Lourdes.
To the child, St. Bernadette, you revealed yourself, "I am the Immaculate Conception."
And now, Immaculate Virgin, Mother of Mercy, Healer of the Sick, Comforter of the Afflicted, you know my wants, my troubles, my sufferings. Look upon me with mercy.
By your appearance in the Grotto of Lourdes, it became a privileged sanctuary from which you dispense your favors.
Many have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and physical. I come, therefore, with confidence in your maternal intercession.
Obtain for me, O loving Mother, this special request. Our Lady of Lourdes, Mother of Christ, pray for me.
Obtain from your Divine Son my special request if it be God's will.
Amen.

8.  Song

Let it be 

https://youtu.be/DFwBRHm_lNg?si=bM4HGx87W85mTw16