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Posts tagged ‘Faith’

Mar 26

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UPrising

“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”― Karl Barth

“The best way to start praying, therefore, is actually to stop praying. To pause. To be still. To put down your prayer list and surrender your own personal agenda. To stop talking at God long enough to focus on the wonder of who he actually is. To ‘be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him’.”― Pete Greig, How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People

Reflection to see what is without fiction, attachment or noise.
Pause to rest, to reorder, reframe, reset.
Stillness to be in awe and wonder.
To be filled and renewed, prepared to carry on with fervor and vigor.
A peace that passes understanding.
A joy detached from circumstances and worries, rooted in gratitude.
The power of prayer to change self rather than everyone and everything else.
An uprising, rooting, transformation.

“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.”― Karl Barth

Mar 24

The Road to the Third Day

“It is why every single expression of faith is provisional—because life carries us always forward to a place where the faith we’d fought so hard to articulate to ourselves must now be reformulated, and because faith in God is, finally, faith in change.”― Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

“We are destined to be fully redeemed, and unlonely, only when the kingdom about which Jesus preached comes in all its completeness. In the meantime, we must give up attempting to find complete fulfillment through partial and pseudosolutions. We must face up to our loneliness, accept it, stop running from it, stop letting it propel us into all kinds of dissipating activity, and stop seeing its resolution as lying exclusively in a journey outward. As hard as that is to do, we must, at some point, stop our frenzied activities and look inward for an answer. The journey toward solitude begins with this first step.”― Ronald Rolheiser, The Restless Heart: Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness

Palm Sunday.
The start of Holy Week.
The final leg of the journey to Easter.
The third day only comes after day one and two.
May the sacred ground of this week stop you in your tracks.
Bring you to your knees.
Beyond cynicism, anger, denial.
No religion required.
Just an open heart.
Courage to take the journey in.

“Faith is not the same thing as being able to imagine God’s existence or even of being able to feel God on an emotional level. The mind is mostly unequal to the task to the task of imagining God’s existence and the heart is often just as inept at giving us any feeling of it. But God doesn’t cease to exist for that reason, nor is faith dead just because the imagination and the heart have run dry. God exists, independent of our perceptions.”― Ronald Rolheiser, The Shattered Lantern: Rediscovering a Felt Presence of God

Feb 29

New Wineskins

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We defend ourselves with descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.”― Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince

Half full.
Half empty.
Overflowing.
The contents of the glass, the cup, the container, the wineskins.
How we measure, bucket, count, describe.
Circumstances.
Relationships.
Self.
The world.
Our thoughts, perspective, biases, assumptions, experience, judgments.
We would rather have the contents change than the container that holds it all together.
If the cup changes, transforms, grows, dies to become new, space is also created for new things to be poured into the cup, to be held.
How can I change to hold new things? To see differently. To count less. To enjoy more wherever I’m at on the journey.
For me, that’s what Lent is.
Rending, clarifying, renewing.
Not a day, but a season, the long game.
All found in the desert of contemplation, mirror looking rather than finger pointing. Laying down the old to pick up the new.
To not demand the world to change.
But to ask kindly and with compassion for me to change where needed and ask God to help make it happen.
The stuff of letting go, transition, thresholds, transformation.
Heavy and light at the same time.
And we are never ever asked to do it alone.
That really is the good news.
Imperfect, fumbling, tripping, picking up again, with joy and grace woven through and always loved.
Old wineskins, old wine.
New wineskins, new wine.

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” – Luke 5:37-39 NKJV

Feb 25

Sacred Shaping

“The soul speaks its truth only under quiet, inviting and trustworthy conditions…If we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we’re waiting for may well emerge.” – Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

“The miracle, upside-down work of God is that our failure isn’t an obstacle, it’s an opportunity to remember to sink into God. Not having what it takes is not a liability, it’s a prerequisite. Maybe there is hope for us after all.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

In the putting down.
In rest and reflection.
In slowing.
Clenched fists opening.
Seeds falling.
Seeds taking root.
To receive something not of our doing, efficiency and striving.
Borne of our not doing, of our very being.
Wintering to prepare for the brilliance of spring.
In the putting down, in the pause, in the stillness.
We discern what to pick up again.
What to leave behind.
Reshaped, renewed, refreshed.
Sacred shaping at work.

“Be faithful to plant. Release the growing to God. Open up clenched fists and let the seeds drop into the ground, let them burrow down deep and do their secret work in the dark. Sacred shaping happens in the waiting.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

Feb 23

Friction to Fruition

“Life does not accommodate you, it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn’t do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition.” – Florida Scott-Maxwell

“Friction is necessary. Ease of life leads to complacency and the atrophy of the human will and spirit. Within our struggles lives our strength, within our trials lives our triumphs. Friction creates a platform for change, generates heat and or fervor and creates a motivational charge that gives us an opportunity to be better. A gem cannot be polished without friction and so neither a person without hardships. Friction within and friction without sharpens our senses and revives our internal resolutions. Friction is uncomfortable, hardships are distressing but both are necessary. We cannot light a match without friction nor can we hone steal. Uncomfortable as it may be, our adversity ultimately lights a fire and sharpens our very will to flourish.” ― Jason Versey, A Walk with Prudence

Seeds to flowers.
In time.
In struggle.
In seasons of honing, sharpening, friction, growth is at work.
The path to fruition, a bumpy road with detours, delays, potholes.
The journey longer than we want, beauty always woven through.
Not the way we would choose.
The start is not the finish.
The middle is where we reside.
The finish comes only if we start and keep moving.
Arriving at new start lines.
Keep moving and take joy, awe and wonder on the ride.
From friction to fruition.
And everything in between.
Keep planting seeds.
Flourishing in ordinary days, in extraordinary ways.

“We like things to manifest right away, and they may not. Many times, we’re just planting a seed and we don’t know exactly how it is going to come to fruition. It’s hard for us to realize that what we see in front of us might not be the end of the story.” – Sharon Salzberg

Feb 20

Always Where We Are

“To walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not.”― Mark Nepo

“Whether through the patterns left in snow, or geese honking in the dark, or through the brilliant wet leaf that hits your face the moment you are questioning your worth, the quiet teachers are everywhere, pointing us to the unlived portion of our lives. When we think we are in charge, the lessons dissolve as accidents or coincidence. But when we’re humble enough to welcome the connections, the glass that breaks across the room is offering us direction, giving us a clue to the story we are in.”― Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life

God does not require silence to speak.
We require it to hear, see, experience and immerse into beauty, joy, grace, love that is overflowing and in abundance.
Signs, wonders, cues, clues, patterns, intuition, inclination, serendipity, coincidence, direction, clarity, discernment, guidance.
Written and painted all over each day, on our heart.
We are the obstacle.
We need quiet to overcome the noise of the world, others, self, ego to hear the still small voice that is narrating our life.
Inviting our participation and partaking.
Not the way we command and demand.
When we stop trying to change God to fit our way, we realize that we are the ones who need to change.
And if we don’t or do it slowly and imperfectly, we are still loved all the way through.
The miracle and gift of love that transcends all and descends to walk beside us in the details of each day.
Always where we are.

“life is always where we are.”― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Feb 8

Far More

“We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.”― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

“You are far more than your worst day, your worst experience, your worst season, dear one. You are more than the sorriest decision you ever made. You are more than the darkest sorrow you’ve endured. Your name is not Ruined. It is not Helpless. It is not Victim. It is not Irresponsible. History is replete with overcomers who stood up after impossible circumstances and walked in freedom. You are not an anemic victim destined to a life of regret. Not only are you capable, you have full permission to move forward in strength and health.”― Jen Hatmaker, Of Mess and Moxie: Wrangling Delight Out of This Wild and Glorious Life

In the overcoming, resilience.
The getting back up, resolve.
The carrying on, strength.
Threading joy, laughter, color through it all, transcendence.

“He said not ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased’; but he said, ‘Thou shalt not be overcome.”― Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

Feb 7

Now-ness, Next-ness, New-ness

“Learn to trust what you cannot see far more than what you can see.”― Caroline Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.”― Wendell Berry

In now, awareness, attention, gratitude.
Struggle, fumbles, trips, carrying on.
Ordinary days graffitied with joy, beauty and laughter.
In next, anticipation, hope, leaping.
Unknowing, mystery, uncertainty, moving forward.
Ordinary days transformed by transitions, thresholds, change.
In new, growth, bloom, resurrection.
Trusting detours, delays, getting lost are the path intended.
Ordinary days never really ordinary at all.
Nows, nexts, news weaving together into the tapestry of life.

“She kept swimming out into life because she hadn’t yet found a rock to stand on.”― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

Jan 25

All Shall Be Well, Is Well

“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”― Julian of Norwich

“If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.”― Julian of Norwich

For a moment, halt.
Quiet. Pause. Listen.
Rapt attention, attunement.
Soft whisper.
Gentle pull.
Gravity.

You are loved.
You are love.
Give and receive without reserve.
All is well.
Now carry on anchored, rooted, buoyed, and held in this sweet space.
Game changer.
Available, overflowing, and given to all.
Same precious love.

“Lord, let not our souls be busy inns that have no room for thee or thine,
But quiet homes of prayer and praise, where thou mayest find fit company,
Where the needful cares of life are wisely ordered and put away,
And wide, sweet spaces kept for thee; where holy thoughts pass up and down
And fervent longings watch and wait thy coming.”― Julian of Norwich

Jan 16

Keep Moving

“Stop calling your heart broken; your heart works just fine. If you are feeling–love, anger, gratitude, grief–it is because your heart is doing its work. Let it.”― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

“Commit yourself to the present. Loosen your grip on the life you had before—before a loss, an upheaval, a change that called everything into question—so that you can be here, where you’re needed, right now. KEEP MOVING. Do something today that will bring you joy even if you know you will not do it well.”― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

We don’t make our life out of perfect circumstances, conditions, relationships.
Stop waiting to move for the timing of “someday when.”
That place is fictional and delays us from doing the daily work, reflection and rest.
Start wherever you are today.
The uneven ground you stand on now.
Move out from there – consistency, stumble, practice, mistakes, repetition, breakthrough, growth, repeat. Better than the day before.
Don’t allow a bad moment or hour to take a foothold.
Footholds become strongholds.
Let it be and let it pass. Like a river flowing.
Few days are end-to-end harmonious.
A shift in perspective can increase the volume.
Gratitude, hope, optimism, enthusiasm are powerful daily practices not platitudes.
Tough, resilient, grit to keep moving imperfectly.
They pull us through everyday frustration, struggle, grief, difficult, loss, dry seasons.
Not to deny them but to acknowledge and not become them.
Our emotions are telling us something more than the obvious.
Anger is fear.
Grief is love.
Keep making your life each ordinary day, weaving joy into the mundane, laughter into the chaos, gratitude amidst loss and change.
Perpetual becoming, transformation is hard work.
Get to it.

“Don’t wait for your life to magically come together–it’s your work to do. Every day, every moment, you are making your life from scratch. Today, take one step, however small, toward creating a life you can be proud of.”― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

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