1. Prayer
Prayer of Saying Yes to God the Father
My good and loving Father,
Please allow me the privilege of saying my “Yes” to You … I say “Yes” to
You Father in all things. Not a conditional YES that means doing only
those things that are comfortable or easy.
Not a conditional Yes that means doing only those things that benefit me.
No! I give You my Yes in all things, Father. Because I know You are pure
love and as pure love You can transform all things. Doing Your will can
never hurt me. Doing Your will can never harm another. Doing Your will
can never separate me from You. Doing Your will can only spread Your
light and love. Doing Your will can only help bring others to You. When I
step inside Your will, I am experiencing the Divine order and peace that
only comes from Your Divine Will. When I step outside or reject Your will,
I am stumbling alone in the chaos, disorder and discord of darkness. Let me
listen to Your gentile loving voice beckoning me, inviting me into Your
Divine Will. I am all Yours Lord, do with me what You will. Because I
know Your will is love. Even when Your will may seem painful or unfair, I
know that Your ways are not always man’s ways. Only You can see the
grand scheme of things. Only You know the “why’s” of my crosses. But
despite what may sometimes appear to be unjust, I trust in You totally.
Why? Because You are my Father and You love me. You want only what
is good for me. You want me to come home to You. There is nothing in
heaven or on earth that I want more. So I say YES Father! I say YES to
You. I say YES to fulfilling joys and to the challenging crosses of Your
Divine Will with all that I am and all that I am called to be in and with
You. I say YES Lord … For that person You are calling … Is ME!
2. Meditation
https://youtu.be/y3O22mqcnPI?si=_nn4lOpurRiMYADf
Beginning with Yes
Friday, August 12, 2016
The great wisdom teachers and mystics say in various ways that you cannot truly see or understand anything if you begin with a no. You have to start with a yes of basic acceptance, which means you do not too quickly label, analyze, or categorize things in or out, good or bad. This is Contemplation 101. You have to be taught how to leave the field open. The ego or false self strengthens itself by constriction, by being against, or by re-action; it feels loss or fear when it opens up to subtlety and Mystery. Living out of the True Self involves positive choice, inner spaciousness, and conscious understanding rather than resistance, knee-jerk reactions, or defensiveness. It is not easy to live this way. It often takes a lifetime of prayer and honest self-observation to stop judging and starting with no.
We see what we are ready to see, expect to see, and even desire to see. If you start with no, you usually get some form of no in return. If you start with yes, you are much more likely to get a yes back. Once you have learned how to say a fundamental yes, later no’s can be very helpful and are surely necessary. Beginning with yes is the foundation of mature nonviolence and compassionate action.
The Risen Christ is a great big yes to everything (see 2 Corinthians 1:19), even early, incomplete stages. “Transcend and include” is an important principle here. The final, stupendous gift is that your false self becomes the raw material for your unique version of True Self. This is the wonderful metamorphosis we call Resurrection. The Risen Christ is still and forever the wounded Jesus—and yet now so much more. Your ordinary life and temperament is not destroyed or rejected. It is “not ended but merely changed,” as the Preface of the funeral liturgy puts it. “This perishable nature will put on imperishability, and this mortal body will put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15: 52-54)—one including the other, not one in place of the other. Picture the nesting dolls that keep including smaller dolls inside of ever larger ones.
Importantly, the Risen Christ is beyond any limits of space and time, as revealed in his bilocation (Luke 24:32-39); passing through doors (John 20:19); and shape-shifting into a gardener (John 20:14-18), a passer-by (Luke 24:13-35), and a wounded man that can only be recognized when Thomas touches the wounds (John 20:27f). The Risen Christ reveals a universal presence that is truly intimate with and connected to everything. The one and the many have become One in him. He reveals that we can operate as a part of the biggest ecosystem or force field possible. Paul’s metaphor for this is “The Body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12ff), where even the “weakest members are the most indispensable ones . . . and are clothed with the greatest care” (12:22f). This is an utterly new and upside-down universe that is revealed in the Risen Christ!
For the True Self, there is nothing to hate, reject, deny, or judge as unworthy or unnecessary. It has “been forgiven much and so it loves much” (Luke 7:47). Compassion and mercy come easily once you live from inside the Big Body of Love. The detours of the false self were all just delaying tactics, bumps in the road, pressure points that created something new in the long run, as pressure does to carbon deep beneath the earth. God uses everything to construct this hard and immortal diamond, our core of love.
Diamonds are the hardest substance on earth. The strong diamond of love will always be stronger than death. Diamonds, once soft black carbon, become beautiful and radiant white lightning under pressure. The true pattern, the big secret, has now been revealed and exposed, “like a treasure hidden in a field.” You did not find the Great Love except by finding yourself too, and you cannot find your True Self without falling into the Great Love.
Gateway to Silence:
God in me loves God in everything.
References:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2009), 49-51; and
Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self (Jossey-Bass: 2013), 183-185.
5. Meditation
https://youtu.be/gFrXs5TbchE?si=_qyicKWflCMOjyR-
Prayer for Accepting Change
Faithful Father, who offers stable love and a grounding presence, help me navigate this change. In the midst of uncertainty, give me confidence in your abiding presence. Help my sense of real loss at what was, not disrupt the potential of new relationships and new opportunities. In the midst of this discomfort, keep me from making drastic decisions that may derail what you have for me. And, help me trust you no matter what. Amen.
8. Song
https://youtu.be/YCRrrP0EhPc?si=CYnryGfzA39QG8fZ
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