Monthly Archives: December 2014

Daily Riches: The ‘Unquiet Universal Trance’ (Thomas Merton and the Kinks)

Posted on by under Asceticism

“Nine tenths of the news, as printed in the papers, is pseudo-news, manufactured events. Some days ten tenths. The ritual morning trance, in which one scans columns of newsprint, creates a peculiar form of generalized pseudo-attention to a pseudo-reality. This experience is taken seriously. It is one’s daily immersion in ‘reality.’ One’s orientation to the rest of the world. One’s way of reassuring himself that he has not fallen behind. …My own experience has been that renunciation of this self-hypnosis, of this participation in the unquiet universal trance, is no sacrifice to reality at all. To ‘fall behind’ in this sense is to get out of the big cloud of dust that everybody is kicking up, to breathe and to see a little more clearly. …Certainly I do not pretend that by simply refusing to keep up with the latest news I am therefore unaffected by what goes on, or free of it all. Certainly events happen and they affect me as they do other people. It is important for me to know about them too: but I refrain from trying to know them in their fresh condition as ‘news.’ When they reach me they have become slightly stale. I eat the same tragedies as others, but in the form of tasteless crusts. The news reaches me in the long run through books and magazines, and no longer as a stimulant. Living without news is like living without cigarettes (another peculiarity of the monastic life). The need for this habitual indulgence quickly disappears. So, when you hear news without the ‘need’ to hear it, it treats you differently. And you treat it differently too.” Thomas Merton

“See that fella, looking all spick and span,
Is he a tailor’s dummy or is he a real man?
Is he genuine,
or straight off the assembly line?”
“Unreal Reality”, the Kinks

“And do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”
Romans 12:2

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you been duped by “pseudo-news and manufactured events?” by “unreal reality?”
  • Could you benefit by waiting to digest the news as “stale crusts?” How might you “treat it differently?”
  • What can you do to “get out of the big cloud of dust that everybody is kicking up … to see a little more clearly?”

Abba, deliver me from unreality.

For More: Faith and Violence by Thomas Merton

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches – One Year Anniversary! Thanks all!

Posted on by under Contemplation and Activism, contemplative virtues, Downward Mobility, Loving Union with God, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation, The Upside-Down Kingdom, thirsting and longing for God

On January 1 last year my blog “Daily Riches” was born. Since then, I’ve posted 304 times, had over 20,000 views by people in 108 countries, and gained 184 faithful daily followers.

Screen shot 2014-12-31 at 2.50.17 PM (2)

My most popular post was on “Approval Addiction” (176 views): https://richerbyfar.com/2014/02/06/daily-riches-approval-addiction-richard-foster/

Thanks to so many of you for your encouragement and support in the last year! I wish you the best, and I hope you’ll keep reading and sharing “Daily Riches.”

Bill

Daily Riches: Learning Prayer, Prioritizing Prayer (John Eudes Bamburger and Henri Nouwen)

Posted on by under Contemplative Prayer, fixed-time prayers, Prayer, Spiritual Formation
In The Genesee Diary, Henri Nouwen records his experiment with life in a Trappist Monastery: “…I put this question to [my spiritual director] John Eudes: ‘How can I really develop a deeper prayer life when I am back again at my busy work? …as long as I remain surrounded by unfinished tasks, my prayer is nearly impossible since I use the time for prayer to wonder about the many things I still have to do. It always seems that there is something more urgent and more important than prayer.’ John Eudes’ answer was clear and simple: ‘The only solution is a prayer schedule that you will never break without consulting your spiritual director. Set a time that is reasonable, and once it is set, stick to it at all costs. Make it your most important task. Let everyone know that this is the only thing you will not change and pray at that time. One hour in the morning before work and a half hour before you go to bed might be a good start. Set the exact time and hold on to it. Leave a party when that time approaches. Simply make it an impossibility to do any type of work, even if it seems urgent, important, and crucial. When you remain faithful, you slowly discover that is is useless to think about your many problems since they won’t be dealt with in that time anyhow. …So praying becomes as important as eating and sleeping, and the time set free for it becomes a very liberating time to which you become attached in the good sense.’ …It seems very convincing to me [Nouwen says], even obvious. The only task left is this: simply doing it in obedience.” Henry Nouwen
 .
“devote yourselves to prayer”
1 Corinthians 7:5

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Does it always seem to you like there is “something more urgent and more important than prayer?”
  • Would you consider making a reasonable, but essentially inflexible plan for fixed-time prayers?
  • Regular daily prayer is “as important as eating and sleeping.” You probably protect your sleeping and eating time. Isn’t it “obvious” that you must also plan for and protect your praying time? How will you do that?

Abba, teach me a faithfulness in prayer that results in liberation from my self-imposed, misguided tyranny.

For More: The Genesee Diary by Henri Nouwen (more from Bamburger from this diary entry)

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

                                        

Daily Riches: ‘The Art of Imperfection’ (J. R. Briggs and Robyn Griggs Lawrence)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Embracing Losses and Limits, Simplicity, The Upside-Down Kingdom

“According to Japanese legend, a young man named Sen no Rikyu …went to tea master Takeno Joo, who tested the younger man by asking him to tend the garden. Rikyu cleaned up debris and raked the ground until it was perfect, and the garden immaculate. Before presenting his work to the master, he shook a cherry tree, causing a few flowers to fall onto the ground. To this day, the Japanese revere Rikyu as one who understood …wabi-sabi …the art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in earthiness, of revering authenticity above all. When a white pottery bowl breaks, for example, one might glue it back together with white lacquer to disguise the breaks, making it look as new and complete as possible. But in the East the bowl might be glued back together with lacquer sprinkled with gold to highlight the cracks and imperfections. Japanese culture sees the aesthetic value of imperfection in wabi-sabi just as much as the Greeks valued perfection in their art. Wabi-sabi is seen as beautiful because it is imperfect and broken.” J. R. Briggs

“Wabi-sabi reminds us that we are all transient beings on this planet—that our bodies, as well as the material world around us, are in the process of returning to dust. Nature’s cycles of growth, decay, and erosion are embodied in frayed edges, rust, liver spots. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace both the glory and the melancholy found in these marks of passing time. Bringing wabi-sabi into your life doesn’t require money, training, or special skills. It takes a mind quiet enough to appreciate muted beauty, courage not to fear bareness, willingness to accept things as they are—without ornamentation. It depends on the ability to slow down, to shift the balance from doing to being, to appreciating rather than perfecting.” Robyn Griggs Lawrence

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
so that the surpassing greatness
of the power will be of God
and not from ourselves….”
2 Corinthians 4:7

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you “revere authenticity above all?”
  • Can you appreciate things in their simplicity – with signs of wear? of age? without “ornamentation?”
  • Can you “find beauty in imperfection” – in the world? in yourself? in others?
  • What would it mean for you to shift from “perfecting” to “appreciating?”

Abba, show your beauty in my imperfections.

For More: Tinker at Pilgrim Creek by Annie Dillard

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: ‘Please Don’t Mention the Dysfunction’ (Walter Brueggemann)

Posted on by under Emotions and Spirituality, Social Justice

“The second loss caused by the absence of lament is the stifling of the question of theodicy …the capacity to raise and legitimate questions of justice in terms of social goods, social access, and social power. …It is now noticed and voiced that life is not as it was promised to be. The utterance of this awareness is an exceedingly dangerous moment at the throne. It is as dangerous as Lech Walesa or Rosa Parks asserting with their bodies that the system has broken down and will no longer be honored. For the managers of the system – political, economic, religious, moral – there is always a hope that the troubled folks will not notice the dysfunction or that a tolerance of a certain degree of dysfunction can be accepted as normal and necessary, even if unpleasant. Lament occurs when the dysfunction reaches an unacceptable level, when the injustice is intolerable and change is insisted upon. …The lament/complaint can then go in two different directions. …the complaint can be addressed to God against neighbor [or] addressed to God against God. …the issue is justice. …the petitioner accepts no guilt or responsibility for the dysfunction but holds the other party responsible. …The claims and rights of the speaker are asserted to God in the face of a system that does not deliver … with the passionate conviction that it can, must, and will be changed. …When the lament form is censured, justice questions cannot be asked and eventually become invisible and illegitimate. …A community of faith that negates laments soon concludes that the hard issues of justice are improper questions to pose at the throne, because the throne seems to be only a place of praise. I believe it thus follows that if justice questions are improper questions at the throne … they soon appear to be improper questions in public places, in schools, in hospitals, with the government, and eventually even in the courts. Justice questions disappear into civility and docility. The order of the day comes to seem absolute, beyond question, and we are left with only grim obedience and eventually despair.” Walter Brueggemann

“ justice is perverted”
Habakkuk 1:4

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you believe “the system has broken down?”
  • Are justice issues “improper … at the throne?”
  • Have you settled for “civility and docility?”
  • Do you believe things “can, must, and will be changed?”

More: The Psalms, Patrick Miller, editor

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Church – Where ‘Never Is Heard a Discouraging Word’ (Walter Brueggemann)

Posted on by under Emotions and Spirituality, Faith and Doubt, Social Justice

“One loss that results from the absence of lament is the loss of genuine covenant interaction, since the second party to the covenant (the petitioner) has become voiceless or has a voice that is permitted to speak only praise and doxology. Where lament is absent, covenant comes into being only as a celebration of joy and well-being. Or in political categories, the greater party is surrounded by subjects who are always ‘yes-men and women’ from whom ‘never is heard a discouraging word.’ Since such a celebrative, consenting silence does not square with reality, covenant minus lament is finally a practice of denial, cover-up, and pretense, which sanctions social control. …We can draw a suggestive analogy from this understanding of the infant/mother relationship for our study of the lament. Where there is lament, the believer is able to take initiative with God and so develop over against God the ego-strength that is necessary for responsible faith. But where the capacity to initiate lament is absent, one is left only with praise and doxology. God then is omnipotent, always to be praised. …The absence of lament makes a religion of coercive obedience the only possibility. I do not suggest that biblical faith be reduced to psychological categories, but I find this parallel suggestive. It suggests that the God who evokes and responds to lament is neither omnipotent in any conventional sense nor surrounded by docile reactors. Rather, this God is like a mother who dreams with this infant, that the infant may some day grow into a responsible, mature covenant partner who can enter into serious communion and conversation. In such … there comes genuine obedience, which is not a contrived need to please, but a genuine, yielding commitment. What is at issue here, as Calvin understood so well, is a true understanding of the human self but, at the same time, a radical discernment of this God who is capable of and willing to be respondent and not only initiator.” Walter Brueggemann

“I will look to see what he will say to me.” Habakkuk 2:1

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Is your relationship with God limited to praise?
  • Do you, does your church, practice “a consenting silence” that “sanctions social control?”
  • Can you imagine God wants you not only for a respondent but an “initiator?”

Abba, help me be the partner you desire.

For More: The Psalms by Patrick Miller, editor

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: The Soul Needs It’s Rest (Tim Keller, Pope Francis and Judith Shulevitz)

Posted on by under Ego Issues, Rest and Relaxation, Sabbath Rhythms, Self-care, Striving and drivenness

“In Deuteronomy 5:12–15, God ties the Sabbath to freedom from [Egyptian] slavery. Anyone who overworks is really a slave. Anyone who cannot rest from work is a slave—to a need for success, to a materialistic culture, to exploitative employers, to parental expectations, or to all of the above. These slave masters will abuse you if you are not disciplined in the practice of Sabbath rest. [And] Sabbath is about more than external rest of the body; it is about inner rest of the soul. We need rest from the anxiety and strain of our overwork, which is really an attempt to justify ourselves—to gain the money or the status or the reputation we think we have to have.” Tim Keller

“The second [illness] is …excessive industriousness; the sickness of those who immerse themselves in work, inevitably neglecting ‘the better part’ of sitting at Jesus’ feet. Therefore, Jesus required his disciples to rest a little, as neglecting the necessary rest leads to stress and agitation. Rest …is a necessary duty and must be taken seriously: in spending a little time with relatives and respecting the holidays as a time for spiritual and physical replenishment, it is necessary to learn the teaching of Ecclesiastes, that ‘there is a time for everything’.” Pope Francis

“Most people mistakenly believe that all you have to do to stop working is not work. The [Jewish and later Puritan sabbath] rules …were meant to communicate the insight that interrupting the ceaseless round of striving requires a surprisingly strenuous act of will, one that has to be bolstered by habit as well as by social sanction.” Judith Shulevitz

“…for anyone who enters God’s rest
also rests from their works,
just as God did from his.”
Hebrews 4:10

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you a slave to the “need for success, to a materialistic culture, to exploitative employers, to parental expectations…?” What can you do to be more free?
  • Do you provide “inner rest” for your soul? Do you do it routinely? (Sabbath keeping is the ultimate routine.)
  • If “interrupting the ceaseless round of striving requires a surprisingly strenuous act of will, one that has to be bolstered by habit” then is what you’re doing to “stop working” sufficient? Is it strenuous? willful? habitual?

Abba, deliver me from slavery from within and without. Help me to rest in you.

For More: The Sabbath World by Judith Shulevitz

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Silent Night, Holy Night (Andrew Murray, F. W. Faber, T. S. Elliott)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Jesus the Savior, Silence, Stillness
“Silent night, Holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin, mother and child
Holy infant, tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

“Silent night, Holy night
Son of God, love’s pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord at thy birth
Jesus, Lord at thy birth.

“Silent night, Holy night
Shepherds quake, at the sight
Glories stream from heaven above
Heavenly, hosts sing Hallelujah.
Christ the Savior is born,
Christ the Savior is born.”
Joseph Mohr

“The one fact we forget is that the saints of old were capable of spiritual silence simply because they had not contracted our modern habit of ceaseless talk in their ordinary life. Their days were days of silence, relieved by periods of conversation, while ours are a wilderness of talk with a rare oasis of silence.” Andrew Murray

“Whenever the sounds of the world die out in the soul, then we hear the whisperings of God.”
F. W. Faber

“Where shall the Word be found,
where will the word resound?
Not here.
There is not enough silence.”
T. S. Elliott

“It is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.”
Lamentations 3:26

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you been quiet enough to hear the “whisperings of God” this Christmas season?
  • Do you live in a “wilderness of talk” rather than “an oasis of silence?” If so, are you working to make space for silence in your life?
  • Have you experienced God’s redeeming grace? His glory “streaming from above” into your life? If not, ask God for this.

Abba, may this season contain enough silence that the Word would be found, and the word would resound.

For More: Then Sings My Soul by Robert J. Morgan, “Silence and Grace” by Richard Rohr

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

 

Daily Riches: Joining God in His Dream for the World (Amy Grant, Dallas Willard, Pete Scazzero)

Posted on by under Jesus the Savior, Prayer, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“No more lives torn apart

That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end.
This is my grown-up Christmas list.”
Amy Grant

“…the kingdom of God …is the domain where what he prefers is actually what happens. And this very often does not happen on this sad earth…. In human affairs other ‘kingdoms’ may for a time be in power, and often are. This second request [“hallowed by thy name”] asks for those kingdoms to be displaced, wherever they are, or brought under God’s rule. … Jesus’s own gospel of the kingdom was not that the kingdom was about to come, or had recently come, into existence. … his gospel concerned only the new accessibility of the kingdom to humanity through himself. …So when Jesus directs us to pray, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence. Rather, we pray for it to take over at all points in the personal,  social, and political order where is it now excluded: ‘On earth as it is in heaven.'” Dallas Willard

“The kingdom of God is God’s dream for the world.” Pete Scazzero

 “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me,
for the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted
and to proclaim that captives will be released
and prisoners will be freed.
He has sent me to tell those who mourn
that the time of the Lord’s favor has come,
and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies.”
Isaiah 61:1-2

Moving From Head to Heart

In many ways our dream for the world and God’s dream for the world are alike: healing of broken lives, peace, comfort to the brokenhearted. God’s dream also probably transcends ours: prisoners and slaves freed, good news for the poor – and a judging of evil.

  • Is your “wish list” inclusive enough that you can pray “thy kingdom come?”
  • Are you praying for God’s kingdom (petitioning), or merely wishing for it – or perhaps neither?
  • Are you praying for God to break into not only the personal, but also the “social, and political order?”

Abba, thy kingdom come, thy will be done – here and now in this place.

For More: The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: The Mystery of the Incarnation (Denise Levertov and Leah Rampy)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Contemplation, Jesus the Savior

“It’s when we face for a moment

the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.”
Denise Levertov

“In the brokenness and chaos of our time, can we hope to live in a way that honors our longing for peace on earth? A contemplative path invites us to be fully open and present to what is, just as it is, in each moment. That is not easy. The instinct to look away from the violent and destructive is strong for us. The urge to flee, fight or freeze is wired deeply into our reptilian brains. We fear that when we look into the face of tragedy we will despair, yet, when we open our spiritual hearts and minds to what is, we find that the sacred is there, in the midst of sorrow and loss. It is a pure gift that we sometimes sense so clearly: we are lavishly loved as God’s creation.” Leah Rampy

“And the Word became human and made his home among us.
He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness, and we have seen his glory,
the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
…From his abundance we have all received
one gracious blessing after another for
…God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ.”
John 1:14-17

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • The news of any day makes it difficult to “face …the worst our kind can do.” Has it also prompted you to face “the taint” in your own self?
  • Have you resisted the temptation “to look away from the violent and destructive …to flee, fight or freeze?”
  • It is in the context of our broken world and tainted selves that God “entrusts, as guest, as brother, the Word” … “the Unique One … near to the Father’s heart.” What feelings arise when you consider this?

Abba, may my response to the incarnation be an awe that cracks open my mind’s shell and enters my heart.

For More: The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov Paul A. Lacey and Anne Dewey (editors)

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Religion and the Status Quo (Walter Brueggemann and Krista Tippett)

Posted on by under Emotions and Spirituality, Faith and Doubt, Prayer, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“… at least one third of the book of Psalms are songs or prayers of sadness and loss and grief and upset, so that very much Old Testament experience of faith is having stuff taken away from us, and what’s so interesting is that in the institutional church with the lectionary and liturgies the whole business of lamentations has been screened out [‘because we don’t know what to do with those depressing passages’*] …because [with] consumer capitalism you just go from triumph to triumph, from well-being to ease to prosperity, and you never have any brokenness.” Walter Brueggemann, with *Krista Tippet

“Faith that permits [lamentation] …redresses the distribution of power between the two parties, so that the petitionary party is taken seriously and the God who is addressed is newly engaged in the crisis in a way that puts God at risk. As the lesser, petitionary party (the psalm speaker) is legitimated, so the unmitigated supremacy of the greater party (God) is questioned, and God is made available to the petitioner. [cf. Job] The basis for the conclusion that the petitioner is taken seriously and legitimately granted power in the relation is that the speech of the petitioner is heard, valued, and transmitted as serious speech. …What happens when appreciation of the lament as a form of speech and faith is lost, as I think it is largely lost in contemporary usage? What happens when the speech forms that redress power distribution have been silenced and eliminated? The answer, I believe, is that a theological monopoly is reinforced, docility and submissiveness are engendered, and the outcome in terms of social practice is to reinforce and consolidate the political-economic monopoly of the status quo.” Brueggemann

“Teach your daughters to wail;
teach one another how to lament.”
Jeremiah 9:20

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have “sadness, loss, grief and upset” been screened out of your church experience? your conversations? your prayers?
  • Is your faith characterized by “docility and submissiveness?” Is that good?
  • Does your religion, church or faith help perpetuate the “monopoly of the status quo?”
  • Who stands to benefit if your faith causes you to support the status quo? Who stands to lose?

Abba, I cry our for help, but no one hears me. I protest, but there is no justice. You have plunged my path into darkness.

For More:  The Psalms: The Life of Faith, ed. Patrick Miller

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

 

 

Daily Riches: When You Don’t Need Spiritual Disciplines (John Ortberg, Dallas Willard and Anthony de Mello)

Posted on by under Asceticism, contemplative virtues, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation

“The master was asked, ‘What is spirituality?’

He said, ‘Spirituality is that which succeeds
in bringing one to inner transformation.’
‘But if I apply the traditional methods handed
down by the masters, is that not spirituality?’
‘It is not spirituality if it does not perform
its function for you. A blanket is no longer a
blanket if it does not keep you warm.’
‘So spirituality does change?’
‘People change and needs change. So what was
spirituality once is spirituality no more. What
generally goes under the name of spirituality
is merely the record of past methods.’
Anthony de Mello

 “A disciplined person is not simply someone who exercises many disciplines. …Disciplined people can do what is called for at any given moment. They can do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason. This definition applies to artists and athletes and astronauts as well as to followers of Jesus. A disciplined follower of Jesus – a ‘disciple’ – is not someone who has ‘mastered the disciplines’ and never misses a daily regimen of spiritual exercises. A disciplined follower of Jesus is someone who discerns when laughter, gentleness, silence, healing words, or prophetic indignation is called for, and offers it promptly, effectively, and lovingly.” John Ortberg

“The aim and substance of spiritual life is not fasting, prayer, hymn singing, frugal living, and so forth. …People who think that they are spiritually superior because they make practice of a discipline such as fasting or silence or frugality are entirely missing the point. The need for extensive practice of a given discipline is an indication of our weakness, not our strength. …the true indicator of spiritual well-being is growth in the ability to love God and people. If we can do this without the practice of any particular spiritual disciplines, then we should by all means skip them.” Dallas Willard

“I discipline my body like an athlete,
training it to do what it should.”
1 Corinthians 9:27

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you practice spiritual disciplines? Why or why not?
  • Do you often “do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason?”
  • How are you doing at “loving God and people?”

Abba, help me do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason.

For More:  The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Restlessness and Grace (A. B. Simpson)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Contemplative Prayer, Silence, Stillness

“… a friend placed in my hand a book called True Peace. It was an old mediaeval message, and it had but one thought – that God was waiting in the depths of my being to talk to me if I would only get still enough to hear His voice. I thought this would be a very easy matter, and so began to get still. But I had no sooner commenced than a perfect pandemonium of voices reached my ear, a thousand clamoring notes from without and within, until I could hear nothing but their noise and din. …It seemed necessary for me to listen to some of them and to answer some of them; but God said, “Be still and know that I am God.” Then came the concert of thoughts for tomorrow, and its duties and cares; but He said, “Be still.” And as I listened … and shut my ear to every sound, I found after a while that when the other noises ceased … there was a still small voice in the depths of my being that began to speak with an inexpressible tenderness, power and comfort. …it became to me the voice of prayer, the voice of wisdom, the voice of duty, and I did not need to think so hard, or pray so hard, or trust so hard; but that ‘still small voice’ of the Holy Spirit in my heart was God’s prayer in my secret soul, was God’s answer to all my questions, was God’s life and strength for soul and body, and became the substance of all knowledge, and all prayer and all blessing: for it was the living GOD Himself as my life, my all. It is thus that our spirit drinks in the life of our risen Lord and we go forth to life’s conflicts and duties like a flower that has drunk in, through the shades of night, the cool and crystal drops of dew. But as dew never falls on a stormy night, so the dews of His grace never come to the restless soul.” A. B. Simpson

“Be still, and know that I am God….” Psalm 46:10

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you think of “being still” as easy? optional?
  • Are you a “restless soul?”
  • Is God waiting for you to “get still enough to hear his voice?”

Abba, help.

For More: Streams in the Desert by Charles Cowman

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Living in the Present Moment (Cynthia Bourgeault, Richard Rohr, William Barry, Brennan Manning)

Posted on by under Awareness, contemplative virtues, Mindfulness, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

“The spiritual life can only be lived in the present moment, in the now. All the great religious traditions insist upon this simple but difficult truth. When we go rushing ahead into the future or shrinking back into the past, we miss the hand of God, which can only touch us in the now.” Cynthia Bourgeault

“…People who are fully present know how to see fully; rightly, and truthfully. Presence is the one thing necessary, and in many ways, the hardest thing of all. Just try to keep your heart open, your mind without division or resistance, and your body not somewhere else. Presence is the practical, daily task of all mature religion and all spiritual disciplines. …Good religion, however is always about seeing rightly … And to see rightly is to be able to be fully present – without fear, without bias, and without judgment.”  Richard Rohr

“Self absorbed and inattentive, we fail to notice the subtle ways in which Jesus is snagging our attention. William Barry wrote, ‘We must school ourselves to pay attention to our experience of life in order to discern the touch of God or what Peter Berger calls the rumor of angels from all the other influences on our experience.’” Brennan Manning

“This is the day which the Lord has made;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
Psalm 118:24

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you think you could be “missing the hand of God” by focusing on past regrets or attempting to control the future?
  • Are you doing anything to learn “to be fully present – without fear, without bias, and without judgment?”
  • What helps you to “school yourself to pay attention to your experience of life” in spite of all the other influences in your experience?
  • Do you have a friend to join you in the goal of becoming less “self absorbed and inattentive” and of perceiving better “the subtle ways that Jesus is snagging your attention?”

Abba, I want to be routinely available to you in the now. Please help me to learn this hardest thing of all.

For More: Trusting in the Mercy of God by Cynthia Bourgealt

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: The Meanest, Weakest Man on Earth (Francis of Assisi, Brigid Hermann and Richard Rohr)

Posted on by under Contemplative Prayer, devotions, Downward Mobility, Ego Issues, Success

“This must be why the Lord has blessed my efforts. He looked down from heaven and must have said, ‘Where can I find the weakest, the smallest, the meanest man on the face of the earth?’ Then he saw me and said, ‘Now I have found him. I will work through him, for he will not be proud of it nor take my honor away from myself. He will realize that I am using him because of his littleness and insignificance.’” Francis of Assisi

“When we turn to the inner circle of the spiritual masters—the men and women, not necessarily gifted or distinguished, to whom God was a ‘living, bright reality’ which supernaturalized their everyday life and transmuted their homeliest actions into sublime worship—we find that their roots struck deep into the soil of spiritual silence. Living in the world and rejoicing in human relationships, they yet kept a little cell in their hearts whither they might run to be alone with God.” Bridgid E. Herman

“It’s not addition that makes one holy, but subtraction: stripping the illusions, letting go of the pretense, exposing the false self, breaking open the heart and the understanding…. Conversion is more about unlearning than learning. In a certain sense we are on the utterly wrong track. We are climbing while Jesus is descending, and in that we reflect the pride and the arrogance of Western civilization, always trying to accomplish, perform, and achieve. …The ego is still in charge.” Richard Rohr

 “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise;
God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—
and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,  
so that no one may boast before him.”
1 Corinthians 1:27-29

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you “little” or “lowly” enough for God to use you? Why or why not?
  • Are you “climbing while Jesus is descending?” …always trying to “accomplish, perform, and achieve?” If so, why?
  • Do you protect a “little cell” in your heart where you can “run to be alone with God?” How else will you undergo the “subtraction” that Rohr mentions?

Abba, I qualify to be your servant: foolish, weak, lowly and despised. Work through me.

For More:  Creative Prayer by Bridgid Herman

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”