Monthly Archives: July 2015

Daily Riches: Pimping Religion, Confronting Empire – Part I (Dan Clendenin)

Posted on by under Awareness, dissent and resistance, Insiders and Outsiders, Nationalism and Patriotism, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised, truth and illusion

“Amos wrote 2,800 years ago, but his prophecy reads like today’s newspaper. He lived under king Jeroboam [whose] kingdom was characterized by territorial expansion, aggressive militarism, and unprecedented economic prosperity. Times were good. Or so people thought. The people of the day interpreted their good fortune as God’s favor. Amos says that the people were intensely and sincerely religious. But theirs was a privatized religion of personal benefit. They ignored the poor, the widow, the alien, and the orphan. …Making things worse, Israel’s religious leaders sanctioned the political and economic status quo. They pimped their religion for Jeroboam’s empire. Enter Amos. Amos preached from the pessimistic and unpatriotic fringe. He was blue collar … neither a prophet nor even the son of a prophet in the professional sense of the term. Amos was a shepherd, a farmer, and a tender of fig trees. He was a small town boy who grew up in Tekoa…. The cultured elites despised him as a redneck [and]… an unwelcome outsider. Born in the southern kingdom of Judah, God called him to thunder a prophetic word to the northern kingdom of Israel. And that’s what this rough hewn prophet did. He opposed the political powers of his day and the religious stooges who supported them. With graphic details that make you wince, Amos describes how the rich crushed the poor; the affluent with their expensive lotions, elaborate music, and vacation homes with beds of inlaid ivory; sexual debauchery in which a man and his son abused the same woman; a corrupt legal system that sold justice to the highest bidder; predatory lenders who exploited vulnerable families; and religious leaders who sanctioned it all. …To the priests who defended, legitimized, and justified Jeroboam’s corrupt kingdom, Amos delivered an uncompromising word of warning. After Amaziah the priest informed Jeroboam that Amos’s preaching was unpatriotic and seditious, he tried to run him out of town. …Then Amaziah said something that reveals how completely he had identified religious faith with political power and economic gain. It ought to send a chill up the spine of every religious leader who ever thought about sucking up to political power: ‘Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.’ (7:13). With those words, the religious justification of political empire is complete, and faith is reduced to patriotic cheer-leading. But Amos wouldn’t be bullied. He had a word of his own for every priest who pimped religion for empire:

Amos 7:17

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Is your vision blurred by “good times?”
  • Do you hear a “religious justification of political empire” in your nation?
  • Is yours a “privatized religion of personal benefit?” Benefits upheld by injustice?

Abba, help us recognize those who speak for you in our day.


Daily Riches: God’s Unanswerable Argument (John Boswel, Jonathan Haidt, and Baruch Spinoza)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Humility, Insiders and Outsiders, Jesus the Savior, Loving Listening, truth and illusion

  . “I have striven not to laugh at human actions,
not to weep at them,
not to hate them,
but to understand them.”
Baruch Spinoza

“You can’t use reason to argue someone out of a position he didn’t get into by reason. …There are, on the other hand, ways to communicate and enlighten not dependent on mere information that can overcome deeply embedded prejudices better than argument. A life can be an argument; being can be a reason. An idea can be embodied in a person, and in human form it may break down barriers and soften hardness of heart that words could not. This is, at least in part, what John the Evangelist means when he refers to Christ as logos. Although translators often render it as ‘word,’ it is much more than that. It is Greek for ‘reason’ and ‘argument’: our word for ‘logic’ comes from it. Christ was God’s unanswerable ‘argument.’ His people had hardened their hearts against his spoken reasons, the arguments propounded – in words – for centuries by prophets and sages. So he sent an argument in the form of a human being, a life, a person. The argument became flesh and blood: so real that no one could refute or ignore it.”  John Boswell

“The first principle of moral psychology [is that] Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. To  explain this principle I used the metaphor of the mind as a rider (reasoning) on an elephant (intuition) and I said that the rider’s function is to serve the elephant. Reasoning matters, particularly because reasons do sometimes influence other people, but most of the action in moral psychology is in the intuitions. …We humans have an extraordinary ability to care about things beyond ourselves, to circle around those things with other people, and in the process to bind ourselves into teams that can pursue larger projects. That what religion is all about … it’s what politics is about too. [But] …team membership blinds people to the motives and morals of their opponents – and to the wisdom that is to be found scattered among diverse political ideologies.” Jonathan Haidt

“Then the owner of the vineyard said,
‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love;
perhaps they will respect him.’”
Jesus in Luke 20:13

 Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you depend heavily on “information” and “strategic reasoning” to persuade others?
  • Is your life a persuasive “argument” for the views you hold?
  • Does your sense of your own rightness blind you “to the motives and morals of your opponents?”

Abba, help me live a life for you that is hard to dismiss or ignore.

For More: The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

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Thanks for following and sharing my blog. I appreciate it!  –  Bill

Daily Riches: Hanging on to Joy (Henri Nouwen, James Martin and Francis de Sales)

Posted on by under Desolation's Gift, Detachment and Attachment, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, Self-care, Suffering and Grace, Wholeness and Brokenness

“Do not become upset when difficulty comes your way. Laugh in its face and know that you are in the arms of God.” Francis de Sales

“Joy is what makes life worth living, but for many joy seems hard to find. They complain that their lives are sorrowful and depressing. What then brings the joy we so much desire? Are some people just lucky, while others have run out of luck? Strange as it may sound, we can choose joy. Two people can be part of the same event, but one may choose to live it quite differently than the other. One may choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise. The other may choose despair and be destroyed by it.” Henri Nouwen

“Remember that your environment doesn’t define you. One of the most difficult things about living in an environment (home, workplace, religious community) lacking in joy is that you may gradually assume that (a) you should not be joyful; (b) you are not naturally joyful, since you’re experiencing so little joy; or (c) the world is a joyless place. Joy-free persons sometimes seem to be joy vampires, sucking the happiness out of everyone’s life as well. In these situations, it’s important to remind yourself that (a) it’s okay to be joyful; (b) you do in fact experience joy in other areas of your life; and (c) there is joy in the world, though it may be outside of this house, workplace, religious community. It requires an inner strength similar to what’s required in being a believer among those who might scorn your beliefs. Hang on to your joy as you would hang on to your belief in God.” James Martin

“Dear brothers and sisters,
when troubles of any kind come your way,
consider it an opportunity for great joy.”
James 1:2

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Does “joy seem hard to find?”
  • Review Martin’s list of unhelpful assumptions and necessary reminders. Which of these reminders is for you?
  • Isn’t it dreadful to think that you or I could be a “joy vampire” to others?
  • Can you “choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise?” …to “hang on to your joy” as you would hang on to your faith?

Abba, help me to bring joy to you and others.

For More: Bread for the Journey by Henri Nouwen

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“Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks 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: Gargoyles and God’s Therapy (Malcolm Muggeridge)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Emotions and Spirituality, Learning Your Proper Place, Mysticism, Wholeness and Brokenness

“Newcomers to the Christian faith, the Journalist finds, are considered, by the nature of the case, to have lost their sense of humour: How funny he used to be! and now, alas, how solemn! how portentous! What an unconscionable bore he has become! This assumption that a sense of humour and a Christian faith are incompatible is totally mistaken. In point of fact, the writers of the great classics of humour – Rebelais, Cervantes, Swift, Gogol – have all been deeply religious. …The true function of humour is to express in terms of the grotesque the immense disparity between human aspiration and human performance. Mysticism expresses the same disparity in terms of the sublime. Hence the close connection between clowns and mystics; hence, too, the juxtaposition on the great medieval cathedrals of steeples reaching up into the Cloud of Unknowing, and gargoyles grinning malevolently down at our dear earth and all it’s foolishness. Laughter and mystical ecstacy, that is to say, both derive from an awareness, in the one case hilarious, in the other ecstatic, of how wide is the chasm between Time and Eternity, between us and our Creator. Let us then, while, as we should, revering the steeples, remember the gargoyles, also, in their way, purveyors of God’s Word, and be thankful that, when the Gates of Heaven swing open, as they do from time to time, mixed with the celestial music there is the unmistakable sound of celestial laughter. … How wonderful it is, this marrying of the ribaldry of gargoyles with the sublimity of steeples, this seeing of a saint in every clown and a clown in every saint, and the Fall of Man as being, at once, the measure and fatality of all our afflictions and the old banana-skin joke on a cosmic scale. …Laughter, indeed, is God’s therapy; He planted the steeples and the gargoyles, gave us clowns as well as saints, in order that we might understand that at the heart of our mortal existence there lies a mystery, at once unutterably beautiful and hilariously funny.” Malcolm Muggeridge

“What are mere mortals … that you should care for them?” Psalm 8:4

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you noticed the “immense disparity” between your aspirations and performance? Have you noticed it in everyone else too?
  • Can you laugh with the gargoyles at this situation – “unutterably beautiful and hilariously funny?”
  • Imagine “how wide is the chasm” between you and your Creator. Now imagine that Creator being undeterred by that chasm in his love for you.

Abba, thank you for the gargoyles.

For More: Conversion by Malcolm Muggeridge

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow and share it. –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Arise … And Quit Your Books! (William Wordsworth and Abraham Heschel)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Contemplation, Mystery
“Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you’ll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
 .
The sun above the mountain’s head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
 .
Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:
How sweet his music! on my life,
There’s more of wisdom in it.
 .
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
.
She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless –
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
 .
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
 .
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—
We murder to dissect.
 .
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
“The Tables Turned” by William Wordsworth
 .
“Amidst the meditation of mountains, the humility of flowers wiser than all alphabets … we are hating, hunting, hurting. Suddenly we feel ashamed of our clashes and complaints in the face of the tacit glory in nature.” Abraham Joshua Heschel
 .
“Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.” Ecclesiastes 12:12
.

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you ever been “wearied” by the endless amount of reading you have done, or want to do? We joke about being addicted to books, but even reading about loving well (for instance) can distract us from actually taking the time and making the effort to love well. Are you sensitive to this pitfall?
  • Even if you do your best to read broadly, it’s still you choosing the content. In experiencing nature, that is changed. Are you able to drop you agenda, put aside your goals and tasks, and “bring with you a heart that watches and receives?”
  • It’s not just the heavens that “proclaim the work of [God’s] hands” (Psalm 19:1), and not just the throstle which is “no mean preacher.” Can you put aside you love for propositions, “dissecting”, and “meddling intellect” long enough to “come into the light of things?”

Abba, help me to be present to your glory in all that surrounds me.

For More: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog.  I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Transformation, Transcendence and Reading (E. B. White, C. S. Lewis, Rebecca Solnit and Franz Kafka)

Posted on by under Insiders and Outsiders, Spiritual Formation, truth and illusion

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.” Franz Kafka

“…doubt has been raised as to the future of reading – whether the printed word is on its last legs. One college president has remarked that in fifty years ‘only five percent of the people will be reading.’ For this, of course, one must be prepared. But how prepare? To us it would seem that even if only one person out of a hundred and fifty million should continue as a reader, he would be the one worth saving, the nucleus around which to found a university. We think this not impossible person, this Last Reader, might very well stand in the same relation to the community as the queen bee to the colony of bees, and that the others would quite properly dedicate themselves wholly to his welfare, serving special food and building special accommodations. From his nuptial, or intellectual, flight would come the new race of men, linked perfectly with the long past by the unbroken chain of the intellect, to carry on the community.” E. B. White

“Like many others who turned into writers, I disappeared into books when I was very young, disappeared into them like someone running into the woods. What surprised and still surprises me is that there was another side to the forest of stories and the solitude, that I came out that other side and met people there.” Rebecca Solnit

“…My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. …in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like a night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.” C. S. Lewis

“in reading this you will be able to understand my insight” Ephesians 3:4

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you read broadly enough to “transcend” yourself (your experience, perspective, biases, prejudices and assumptions)?
  • Have you run into the woods (like entering Narnia through the wardrobe), met unexpected people there, and been forever changed by that?
  • Do you position yourself for personal transformation by attempting to “understand the insight” of Others?

Abba, as I’m exposed to the voices of Others, may I transcend my tiny self.

For More: How to Read Slowly by James Sire

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. 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)

 

Daily Riches: An Uninterrupted Flow of Words … Silenced by Death (Thomas Merton and Simone Weil)

Posted on by under Silence, Solitude, Stillness

“Life is not to be regarded as an uninterrupted flow of words which is finally silenced by death. Its rhythm develops in silence, comes to the surface in moments of necessary expression, returns to deeper silence, culminates in a final declaration, then ascends quietly into the silence of Heaven which resounds with unending praise.

“Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery. Negative silence blurs and confuses our identity, and we lapse into daydreams or diffuse anxieties. Positive silence pulls us together and makes us realize who we are, who we might be, and the distance between these two. …Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being. Between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other men, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality. …It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister.

“If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God we must pass beyond everything that can be seen and enter into darkness. Since nothing that can be heard is God, to find Him we must enter into silence.” Thomas Merton

“A mind enclosed in language is in prison.” Simone Weil

“May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing to you,
O Yahweh, my rock and my redeemer.”
Psalm 19:14

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Is life as you live it “an uninterrupted flow of words?” If so, what does that say about you?
  • Have you experienced the love for others that can be discovered in “deep solitude and silence?”
  • Do you “trust entirely in language to contain reality?” Do you ever feel “imprisoned” by the limits of words?
  • Has time spend in silence shown you “who you are, who you might be, and the distance between these two?”

Abba, teach me a healthy rhythm that includes speech and silence, but may I know the world in silence.

For More:  Thomas Merton: Essential Writings edited by Christine Bochen

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. 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: Wisdom Through the Awful Grace of God (Simone Weil, David Benner, Pete Scazzero and Aeschylus)

Posted on by under Awareness, Desolation's Gift, Detachment and Attachment, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, Loving Well, Spiritual Formation, Suffering and Grace, The Love of God, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget

falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
Aeschylus

“Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself. Man must learn to think of himself as a limited and dependent being; and only suffering teaches him this. …Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand. …Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him. …The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say, ‘What are you going through?’” Simone Weil

“Suffering can be a path to awakening when we engage it with receptivity to the gifts it holds rather than simply attempt to endure it. One of those gifts is that suffering has unique capacity to help us soften and release attachments and move toward a life of non-attachment. Simone Weil said that suffering that does not detach us is wasted suffering. Don’t waste suffering. It’s always a shame to have to repeat lessons because we don’t get their point but suffering is a particularly bad lesson to be slow to get.” David Benner

“The sad reality is that most of us will not go forward until the pain of staying where we are is unbearable.”  Pete Scazzero

“Do not be like a senseless horse or mule    
that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”
Psalm 32:9

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you come to see yourself as “a limited and dependent being?”
  • Do you work to “place yourself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them?” …to suffer with them? If not, why not, since understanding them must necessarily precede loving them well?
  • Are you waiting to make some change God wants until things become “unbearable?” Are you at risk of needing to “repeat” difficult lessons that the “awful grace of God” has been trying to teach you?

Abba, help me to heed the lessons of your sometimes awful grace.

For More: Spirituality and the Awakened Self by David Benner

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. Thank you for following and sharing my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Outside the Dominant Consciousness (Richard Rohr and Walter Brueggemann)

Posted on by under Awareness, Being the Beloved, dissent and resistance, Nationalism and Patriotism, truth and illusion

“Authentic God experience gives you another place to stand, another identity, a spacious and gracious place, which invites you to stand outside of the dominant consciousness that surrounds you and that everybody accepts as reality. Authentic God experience liberates you from the usual domination systems, liberates you from needing everything to be perfect or right, and liberates you to be who you really are – ordinary  and poor – just like everybody else. Until you can be at home in the alternative Kingdom of God, you will almost always be completely conformed to the superficial systems of this world, while calling it freedom and independence. Some do it by conforming to styles and fashions of their particular groupthink, while others do it by various conformities to the political correctness of either left or right. Some even do it by conforming to the rebellious group, but that is not freedom either. Gospel freedom allows you to act from deep within, where the Holy Spirit dwells, and not for or against any outside group whatsoever…. Jesus’ announcement of the reign of God was telling us that culture as we’ve created it is on a track toward self-destruction and emptiness. All we have to give up is the utterly false understanding that we have of ourselves from civil society. For some reason that liberation seems to be the most difficult thing in the world!” Richard Rohr

“The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us. …Such utterance staggers and offends among the listeners. But it also opens vistas of possibility where we had not thought to go and where in fact, we are most reluctant to go.”  Walter Brueggemann

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Romans 12:2

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Does your religion determine your politics or do your politics determine your religion?
  • Is the religious instruction you receive making you more of an individual, or more a conforming member of a group?
  • Acting from “deep within, where the Holy Spirit dwells” is difficult but keeps us from bondage to “what everybody accepts as reality.”  Are you learning to do that?

Abba, help me to hear your prophets today and not be offended by them or stagger at their voice. Lead me where I have not thought to go and been reluctant to go.

For More:  The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. 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)

Daily Riches: Leadership with Vision (Pete Scazzero)

Posted on by under approval addiction, Being and Doing, Change Yourself First, Contemplation and Activism, Emotions and Spirituality, Jesus the Savior, Self-care, Success

“The only miracle, except for the resurrection, that is recorded in the four gospels is Jesus’ multiplying of the loaves and fishes. Why? The truths contained there are so vast and far-reaching. In Jesus’ mentoring of the Twelve, he returns to it multiple times to teach them about mature leadership.

‘Why are you talking about having no bread?
Do you not see or understand?
Are your hearts hardened?’
Jesus in Mark 8:17

MATURE LEADERSHIP

  • …redefines abundance as the presence of Jesus Himself.
  • …sees beneath other’s anxiety and fear to the deeper work God is doing in and around them.
  • …responds to the situation according to his values and beliefs (integrity).
  • …courageously does what is best for everyone despite other’s lack of support and validation.
  • …invites others to combine their ‘loaves’ and thankfully offers them to the Father.
  • …creates specific steps to make an overwhelming task manageable by effectively breaking down the problem.
  • …models flexible (not rigid) balance of rest and service to others to do good when the need arises.

IMMATURE LEADERSHIP…

  • …defines abundance by considering only visible resources.
  • …gets entangled in other’s anxiety, fear or negativity.
  • …responds to the pressure of others and accommodates them.
  • …takes an easy path in an attempt to keep everyone ‘happy.’
  • …leaves people alone and isolated in their fears, limits and discouragement.
  • …grumbles, blames or ignores the problem because of feeling overwhelmed.
  • …becomes so rigid it results in losing compassion.

 

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you practicing a rhythm of “rest and service” like Jesus did? If not, what does that say about you?
  • What are you doing to keep compassion at the heart of your ministry, to keep it more central than anything else?
  • What might be the miracle waiting to happen should you focus on what you have, rather than on what you don’t? (Scazzero)

Abba, keep me from ministering with an unbelieving heart that misses how abundant the resources are in your hands, that settles for the reasonable, that misses out on the miracle.

For More: The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Pete Scazzero

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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 and share my blog. 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: All Faced Calmly … In Good Time – On Silence (Thomas Keating, Soren Kiekegaard, John Fox, Parker Palmer, Melodia and Mother Teresa)

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

“Silence is God’s first language;

everything else is a poor translation.
In order to hear that language,
we must learn to be still and to rest in God.”
Thomas Keating

“Prayer is not hearing yourself talk,
but being silent,
staying silent
and waiting until you hear God.”
Soren Kiekegaard

“Stillness is where you meet with the essence of things…. In stillness we can begin to let go of external voices, stereotypes, and clichés that crowd out original, personal and internal voices. Those discordant outer voices fade away in stillness. Stillness is a place of rooting oneself in a much larger field of being.” John Fox

”But deep down, we know that when we step back, breathe, allow our agitation to settle, and simply start paying attention, we often see new possibilities in situations that once seemed intractable. The wisdom traditions, religious and secular, have always claimed that only in this contemplative state are we able to touch the truth, whether truth be understood as the fruit of mental acuity or of mystical experience.” Parker Palmer

“With silence, problems appear in a less somber light, in their real dimensions, and seem wholly tractable. Daily worries lose their force, until they appear banal. Hurrying makes no sense. To where am I running, you ask yourself, and why am I running so? Anguish does not exist here any more. All is in its place and will be faced calmly, in good time.”  Melodia

“In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. …Souls of prayer are souls of great silence. Silence gives us a new outlook on every-thing.” Mother Teresa

“If only you could be silent! That’s the wisest thing you could do.” Job 13:5

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you learned “to be still and rest in God” as the “wisest thing you could do?
  • Does practicing contemplation have a significant place in your life? If not, how instead will you “root yourself in a much larger field of being?”
  • Have you experienced everything falling into place in silence – to be “faced calmly in good time?” Have you experienced being given a “new outlook on every-thing” in silence? Have you given silence a genuine try?

Abba, help me to make the space and time for necessary, life-giving silence.

For More: Invitation to Love by Thomas Keating

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. 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.”