Category Archives: Awareness

Daily Riches: The Crucible of Interruptions (Mark Buchanan)

Posted on by under Awareness, awe and wonder, Mindfulness, The Sacrament of the Present Moment, Uncategorized

“Jesus … lived life with the clearest and highest purpose. Yet he veered and strayed from one interruption to the next, with no apparent plan in hand other than his single, overarching one: Get to Jerusalem and die. Otherwise, his days, as far as we can figure, were a series of zigzags and detours, apparent whims and second thoughts, interruptions and delays, off-the-cuff plans, spur-of-the-moment decisions, leisurely meals, serendipitous rounds of storytelling. …Purposefulness requires paying attention, and paying attention means … that we make room for surprise. We become hospitable to interruption. I doubt we can notice for long without this hospitality. And to sustain it we need … a conviction in our bones that God is Lord of our days and years, and that his purposes and his presence often come disguised as detours, messes, defeats. ‘I came to you naked,’ Jesus says. ‘I came to you thirsty.’ ‘When, Lord?’ we ask, startled. When He wore the disguise of an interruption. Think a moment of all the events and encounters that have shaped you most deeply and lastingly. How many did you see coming? How many did you engineer, manufacture, chase down? And how many were interruptions? The span between life as we intend it and life as we receive it is vast. Our true purpose is worked out in that gap. It is fashioned in the crucible of interruptions.” Mark Buchanan

“Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro … and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness … and he looked, and behold, [a] bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, ‘I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.'” Exodus 3:1-3

Moving From Head to Heart

  • What if Moses hadn’t “turned aside?”
  • Imagine yourself living as Jesus did, with “zigzags and detours …” etc. How would that feel?
  • Can you become more hospitable to what happens in “the [vast] span between life as you intend it and life as you receive it?”

Abba, “Grant us, we pray you, a heart wide open to all this joy and beauty, and save our souls from being so steeped in care or so darkened by passion that we pass heedless and unseeeing when even the thornbush by the wayside is aflame with the glory of God.” Walter Rauschenbusch

For More: The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan

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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: Let Silence Do the Heavy Lifting (Susan Scott, Pierre Lacout, and Gunilla Norris)

Posted on by under approval addiction, Awareness, Loving Listening, Silence

“Silence makes us nervous. …we fear that silence may be interpreted as low self-esteem or questionable intelligence. …Many feel silence is a form of nonparticipation, signaling lack of interest. …For fear of being thought clueless, have you dived into a conversation, throwing out opinions, arguing your point, defending your ideas throughout a debate, only to discern later, once you stopped to catch your breath, that there was another, wiser road you could have taken? It is understandable that emerging leaders believe they need to be fast on their conversational feet …Fierce conversations, however, require silence. In fact, the more emotionally loaded the subject, the more silence is required. And, of course, this carries over into our homes, into our personal relationships. Often we are simply trying to intuit something about ourselves, our companions, or the topics themselves. Sometimes we need silence in which to make a decision about the closeness we feel for our companions or the distance we feel from them. Once in a precious while, silence is merely abstinence from self-assertion.  …Often my role is to slow down a conversation, and silence is my greatest tool in this. As we talk with people, as we sit with them in silence, what is in the way–anger, numbness, impatience, manipulation, rigidity, blame, ego, cruelty, ambition, insensitivity, intimidation, pride–may  fall away. It is in silence that such attributes, emotions, and behaviors reveal themselves as unnecessary. …My conversations with the people most important to me, silence has become my favorite sound, because that is where the work is being done. Of all the tools I use during conversations and all the principles I keep in mind, silence is the most powerful of all.”  Susan Scott

“When we can stand aside from the usual and perceive the fundamental, change begins to happen. …Silence brings us to back to basics, to our senses, to our selves.” Gunilla Norris

“Silence is the welcoming acceptance of the other.” Pierre Lacout

“fools multiply words”  Ecclesiastes 10:14

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Can you remember that “silence is required” in your next “emotionally loaded” conversation?
  • In your relationships, can you trust silence to “do the heavy lifting” like that described above?
  • Will you embrace silence and be brought “back to your senses?”

Abba, I come today only with silence.

For More: Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott*

*Special thanks to Tad Blackburn for making me aware of this book.

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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: Snow Day – Rest Day or Work Day? (Thomas Merton, George MacDonald, Brent Bill)

Posted on by under Awareness, Being and Doing, Busyness, Rest and Relaxation, Striving and drivenness

“Our being is not to be enriched merely by activity and experience as such. Everything depends on the quality of our acts and our experiences. A multitude of badly performed actions and of experiences only half lived exhausts and depletes our being. …when our activity is habitually disordered, our malformed conscience can think of nothing better to tell us than to multiply the quantity of our acts, without perfecting their quality. And so we go from bad to worse, exhausting ourselves, empty our whole life of all content, and fall into despair. There are times, then, when in order to keep ourselves in existence at all we simply have to sit back for a while and do nothing. And for a man who has let himself be drawn completely out of himself by his activity, nothing is more difficult than to sit still and rest, doing nothing at all. The very act of resting is the hardest and most courageous act he can perform; and often it is quite beyond his power.” Thomas Merton

“Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.” George MacDonald

“When we discover the secret of being inwardly at worship while outwardly at work, we find that the soul’s silence brings us to God and God to us.” Brent Bill

“my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus, in Matthew 11:30

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you aware of activity in your life that “depletes your being”, leaving you exhausted, unhappy or guilty because of its “disordered” nature?
  • When you feel that way, is your response to simply multiply “the quantity” of your acts? (more “badly performed actions” and “experiences only half lived”)
  • Are you able to “do nothing at all?” to practice “sacred idleness” in order to “keep yourself in existence?”
  • What practice could help you to “find the soul’s silence”, both in work and in rest?

Abba, may my soul find peace with you in both my work and my rest.

For More: No Man Is An Island 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: Cutting Through Political and Religious Illusions (Vernon Howard, Thomas Merton and Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Posted on by under Awareness, Faith and Doubt, Learning Your Proper Place, Nationalism and Patriotism, truth and illusion

“Every day that you attempt to see things as they are in truth is a supremely successful day.” Vernon Howard

“It seems to me that the most basic problem is not political, it is apolitical and human. One of the most important things to do is to keep cutting deliberately through political lines and barriers and emphasizing the fact that these are largely fabrications and that there is another dimension, a genuine reality, totally opposed to the fictions of politics…. My own peculiar task in my Church and in my world has been that of the solitary explorer who, instead of jumping on all the latest bandwagons at once, is bound to search the existential depths of faith in its silences, its ambiguities, and in those certainties which lie deeper than the bottom of anxiety. In those depths there are no easy answers, no pat solutions to anything. It is a kind of submarine life in which faith sometimes mysteriously takes on the aspect of doubt, when, in fact, one has to doubt and reject conventional and superstitious surrogates that have taken the place of faith.” Thomas Merton

“The believer is neither a pessimist nor an optimist. To be either is illusory. The believer sees reality not in a certain light but as it is….” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus, in John 8:32

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Whether in understanding politics, your religion or the people in your life, do you practice the rule: “no easy answers [and] no pat solutions to anything?”
  • Might you may need to “doubt and reject conventional and superstitious surrogates that have taken the place of faith?” If not, why not?
  • With the passing of time, have you recognized suspect conventions or superstitions in your religious beliefs or political persuasions? Is there anyone (friend, author, opponent) that can help you do to so? How could that “set you free” in important ways?

Abba, help me to see and cut through the many fabrications of my day. Break down my misguided certainty, and help me to see things as they are in truth.

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: Take the Trouble to See, Then Love (Anthony de Mello, Pete Scazzero)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Jesus the Savior, Loving Well

“Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see persons as they really are here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them; otherwise it is not the people that you love but the idea that you have formed of them. Therefore, the first act of love is to see this person…. And this involves the enormous discipline of dropping your desires, your prejudices, your memories, your projections, your selective way of looking…. When you set out to serve someone whom you have not taken the trouble to see, are you meeting that person’s need or your own? So the first ingredient of love is to really see the other. The second ingredient is equally important: to see yourself, to ruthlessly flash the light of awareness on your motives, your emotions, your needs, your dishonesty, your self-seeking, your tendency to control and manipulate. This means calling things by their names, no matter how painful the discovery and the consequences. If you achieve this kind of awareness of the other and yourself, you will know what love is.” Anthony de Mello

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!'” Luke 7:35-39

Moving From Head to Heart

“Simon the Pharisee did not really see the sinful woman as a human being loved by God. He saw a sinner, an interruption, a person without a right to be at the dinner table. Jesus saw her differently.” Pete Scazzero

  • Think about it, how would you have seen her?
  • What can you do to gain more “awareness of the other and yourself?”

Abba, open my eyes to reality as you know it.

More: Begin the Journey with the Daily Office 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 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 Mob of Men as a ‘Mob of Kings’ (G. K. Chesterton, Frederick Buechner and Richard Rohr)

Posted on by under Awareness, Loving Well

“You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.” W. H. Auden

Saint Francis “… honored all men; that is, he not only loved but respected them all. What gave him extraordinary personal power was this: that from the Pope to the beggar, from the sultan of Syria in his pavilion to the ragged robbers crawling out of the wood, there was never a man who looked into those brown burning eyes without being certain Francis Bernardone was really interested in him, in his own inner individual life from cradle to grave; that he himself was being valued and taken seriously… He treated the whole mob of men as a mob of kings.” G. K. Chesterton

“If we are to love our neighbors,
before doing anything else
we must see our neighbors.
With our imagination as well as our eyes,
that is to say like artists,
we must see not just their faces
but the life behind and within their faces.
Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.”
Frederick Buechner

“The first gaze is seldom compassionate. It is too busy weighing and feeling itself: ‘How will this affect me?’  …This leads us to an implosion, a self-preoccupation that cannot enter into communion with the other or the moment. In other words, we first feel our feelings before we can relate to the situation and emotion of the other. Only after God has taught us how to live ‘undefended’, can we immediately stand with and for the other, and in the present moment. It takes a lot of practice.” Richard Rohr

“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd [a mob of men],
he had compassion on them,
because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”
Mark 6:34

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Does the fact of your “own crooked heart” inform your loving?
  • Who is “the other” for you?  neighbor, spouse, family member, stranger, competitor, anyone who is not you?
  • Are you aware of the problem of “feeling your feelings” before you relate to the situation of the Other?
  • How can you practice a “first gaze” where “love is the frame” in which you see anyone who is the Other?

Abba, help me learn a compassionate first gaze so that I honor, love and respect others. Disarm me, undefend me, unpreoccupy me with myself.

For More: Saint Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton

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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: Sit Down and Let the Dust Settle Around You (Eugene Peterson, Vincent Roazzi and Rick Warren)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Awareness, awe and wonder, Busyness, Hurry Sickness, Stillness

“When we’re in full possession of our powers—our education complete, our careers in full swing, people admiring us and prodding us onward—it’s hard not to imagine that we’re at the beginning, center, and end of the world, or at least of that part of the world in which we’re placed. At these moments we need … to quit whatever we’re doing and sit down.
When we sit down, the dust raised by our furious activity settles. …We become aware of the real world. God’s world. And what we see leaves us breathless: it’s so much larger, so much more full of energy and action than our ego-fueled action, so much clearer and saner than the plans that we had projected.” Eugene Peterson

“If you do not control your ego, your ego will control you. If you do not have a plan for your ego, your ego will have a plan for you. You can be the master of your ego, or you can be its slave. It’s your choice.” Vincent Roazzi

“Activity and productivity are not the same thing.” Rick Warren

“When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought,
‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.’
He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place!
This is none other than the house of God;
this is the gate of heaven.’”
 Genesis 28:16,17

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you get caught up on the flurry of activity around you? Do you get manipulated by admirers? by others “prodding you onward?”
  • Are you learning to “sit down” and let “the dust raised by your furious activity settle”, so that you “awake from your sleep” to the real world – God‘s world?”
  • How much of your activity for God do you think could be “ego-fueled action” that leads to plans that are neither clear nor sane? Do you have “a plan for your ego?”

Abba, I will not hurry through the day, with my adrenaline pumping, striving and pushing in a way that makes it impossible for me to be aware of the real world, of what you’re doing, and of what you want from me. Deliver me from my addiction to motion, activity and supposed progress. Help me in the course of each day, to sit down and let the dust settle around me.

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For More: Leap Over a Wall

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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 Sacrament of the Present Moment (Edwina Gateley, Evelyn Underhill and Julian of Norwich) *

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

“This is my prayer—

That, though I may not see,
I be aware
Of the Silent God
Who stands by me.
That, though I may not feel,
I be aware
Of the Mighty Love
Which doggedly follows me.
That, though I may not respond,
I be aware
That God—my Silent, Mighty God,
Waits each day.
Quietly, hopefully, persistently.
Waits each day and through each night
For me.
For me—alone.”
Edwina Gateley, “Silent God”

“God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment.
Meet and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament.”
Evelyn Underhill

“…God wishes to be seen, and he wishes to be sought, and he wishes to be expected, and he wishes to be trusted.” Julian of Norwich

“Where can I go from your Spirit?
 Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.”
Psalm 139:7-10

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • There is a “Silent God who stands by” you, and a “Mighty Love which doggedly follows” you. What emotions arise in your soul when you let that sink in?
  • In his infinity and ubiquity, God is able to “wait each day, quietly, hopefully, persistently …each day and through each night …For me–alone” – and at the same time for you, and for every person made in God’s image. How are you responding to God’s waiting hopefully, quietly – persistently for you?
  • Do you really believe that “God is always coming to you in the … present moment?” Can you focus, not on the past or the future, but on being present to God in this moment now, and as this day unfolds, through the moments of the day as they succeed each other?

Abba, help me learn to structure my days so that I return again and again to these life-giving concepts. And thank you for your nearness, your persistence, your dogged, unfailing love. Thank you that you hold me fast.

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For More: There Was No Path So I Trod One by Edwina Gateley

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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 Suffering of Jesus (Amphilochius of Iconium and Fulton Sheen)

Posted on by under Awareness, Being the Beloved, God's Grace, Jesus the Savior, The Love of God

“Yesterday, on the Cross, He darkened the sun’s light, and behold in full day it was as night; today death has lost its dominion, suffering itself a kind of death. Yesterday the earth mourned … and in sadness clothed itself in a garment of darkness. Today, the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. … O new and unheard of happening! He is stretched out upon a Cross Who by His word stretched out the heavens. He is held fast in bonds Who has set the sand a bound for the sea. He is given gall to drink Who has given us wells of honey. He is crowned with thorns Who has crowned the earth with flowers. With a reed they struck His Head Who of old struck Egypt with ten plagues, and submerged the head of Pharaoh in the waves. That countenance was spat upon at which the Cherubim dare not gaze. Yet, while suffering these things He prayed for His tormentors, saying: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. He overcame evil by goodness. Christ undertook the defense of those who put Him to death: eager to gather them into His net; annulling the charge, and pleading their ignorance. Made the sport of their drunken frenzy, He submitted without bitterness. He suffered their drunkenness, and in His love for mankind called them to repentance. What more could He do?” Amphilochius of Iconium

“I wonder maybe if our Lord doesn’t suffer more from our indifference, than he did from the crucifixion.” Fulton Sheen

“When they hurled their insults at him,
he did not retaliate;
when he suffered, he made no threats.
Instead, he entrusted himself
to him who judges justly.”
1 Peter 2:23

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • From the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Do you think those who killed Jesus fathomed the magnitude of their crime?
  • Imagine how often this is true of us as well – not only in our obvious sins, but in our “indifference.” Can you admit this about yourself?
  • Can you nevertheless believe that you are loved by God, just as you are? Sit with that and see what emotions arise.

Abba, thank you for your unfailing love – and for not revealing to me the full magnitude of my sin.

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For More: The Lives of the Saints by Bert Bhezzi

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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: Sniffing Out Wrong in the Neighborhood (Eugene Peterson)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Emotions and Spirituality

“Anger is a most useful diagnostic tool. When anger erupts in us it is a signal that something is wrong. Something isn’t working right. There is evil or incompetence or stupidity lurking about. Anger is our sixth sense for sniffing out wrong in the neighborhood. What anger fails to do, though, is to tell us whether the wrong is outside or inside us. We usually begin by assuming that the wrong is outside us–our spouse, or our child, or God has done something wrong, and we are angry. But when we track the anger carefully, we often find it leads to wrong within us–wrong information, inadequate understanding, underdeveloped heart.” Eugene Peterson

“In your anger do not sin.” Ephesians 4:26

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Does anger function in your life more as a gift (“a diagnostic tool”) or as a trigger for sin (blaming, defending, judging, acting out)?
  • When anger rises up in you, can you look within yourself first and ask, “What does my response say about me?”
  • Think about “the wrong information, the inadequate understanding, the underdeveloped heart” that you may have. Can you resolve to be more “slow to anger?” By delaying your anger, can you create space for God to work in the situation and in you?

Abba, may I respond more often with humility as I consider the limitations of my perspective, and more often with love as I develop a heart for you. I trust in you all day long. Save me from myself.

 __________

For More: Under the Unpredictable Plant by Eugene Peterson

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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: Who’s Right? Who’s Wrong? (Pema Chödrön and Richard Rohr) *

Posted on by under Awareness, Ego Issues, Humility, Loving Well

“Could our minds and our hearts be big enough just to hang out in that space where we’re not entirely certain about who’s right and who’s wrong? Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right? Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice this way, because we’ll find ourselves continually rushing around to try to feel secure again—to make ourselves or them either right or wrong. But true communication can happen only in that open space.” Pema Chödrön

“The dualistic mind is essentially binary. It is either/or thinking. It knows by comparison, by opposition, by differentiation. It uses descriptive words like good/evil, pretty/ugly, intelligent/stupid, not realizing there may be 55 or 155 degrees between the two ends of each spectrum. It works well for the sake of simplification and conversation, but not for the sake of truth or even honest experience. Actually, you need your dualistic mind to function in everyday life: to do your job as a teacher, a doctor, or an engineer. It is great stuff as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. The dualistic mind cannot process things like infinity, mystery, God, grace, suffering, death, or love. When it comes to unconditional love, the dualistic mind can’t even begin to understand it.” Richard Rohr

 “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another.”
1 Peter 5:5

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Can you identify examples of dualistic thinking in your world? in yourself?
  • Is your desire to love well strong enough to exist “in that space where you’re not entirely certain about who’s right and who’s wrong?”
  • A person who loves well will be a humble person. Is there a practice you can adopt to grow in humility, particularly when it comes to dualistic thinking?

Abba, grant me a heart that cares more about loving people than showing them they’re wrong.

__________

For More: Dualistic Thinking... by Richard Rohr

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

Daily Riches: Inconvenient Epiphanies (John L’Heureux and Dorothy Day) *

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Awareness, Busyness, Mindfulness, Social Justice, Striving and drivenness

“Christ came into my room and stood there….

I had work to do….
I didn’t ask him to sit down;
He’d have stayed all day.
… So I said to him after a while,
Well, what’s up? What do you want?
And he laughed …
Said he was just passing by
And thought he’d say hello.
Great, I said. Hello.
So he left.
And I was so mad
I couldn’t even listen to the radio. I went
And got some coffee.
The trouble with Christ is
He always comes at the wrong time!”
John L’Heureux, “The Trouble with Epiphanies”

“If everyone were holy and handsome, with ‘alter Christus’ shining in neon lighting from them, it would be easy to see Christ in everyone. If Mary had appeared in Bethlehem clothed, as St. John says, with the sun, a crown of twelve stars on her head and the moon under her feet, then people would have fought to make room for her. But that was not God’s way for her nor is it Christ’s way for Himself now when He is disguised under every type of humanity that treads the earth.” Dorothy Day

“He came into the very world he created,
but the world didn’t recognize him.BwlWW2NCQAE0JYW
He came to his own people,
and even they rejected him.”
John 1: 10-11

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Would you say you’re a “driven” person? Do you sometimes choose to work when you know you should spend some time with Jesus?
  • Think about the reception that Joseph and Mary received looking for lodging in Bethlehem. Think about the world’s response to it’s creator, the Jew’s response to their Messiah. How often do you think you might have been oblivious to a divine “epiphany?”
  • Do you look for Jesus who is “disguised under every type of humanity that treads the earth?”

Abba, you are daily coming into my life and world, sometimes “seen”, but no doubt more often in many fabulous, unlikely disguises. Graciously open my eyes Lord. Graciously prepare my heart.

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For More:  Praying in the Presence of Our Lord by Dorothy Day

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Practical Thinking About Loving Union with God (Pete Scazzero) *

Posted on by under Awareness, Loving Union with God, Patience with Yourself, Self-care

Pastor Pete Scazzero suggests thirteen indicators of being out of loving union with God:

  • I feel anxiety in the tenseness and tightness in my body.
  • I am not present or listening intently.
  • I feel pressure, with too much to do in too little time.
  • I am rushing.
  • I give quick opinions and judgments.
  • I am fearful about the future.
  • I am overly concerned with what others think.
  • I am defensive and easily offended.
  • I am preoccupied and distracted.
  • I am resentful of interruptions and abrupt.
  • I am manipulative, not patient.
  • I am unenthusiastic or threatened by the success of others.
  • I talk more than I listen.

“Abide in Me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself
unless it abides in the vine,
so neither can you unless you abide in Me.”
Jesus in John 15:4

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • This list is a profound body-focused diagnostic tool. What is your body telling you about your present experience of loving union with God?
  • The desert fathers talked about the life of faith this way: “I fall down; I rise up. I fall down; I rise up.” The point of the list is that your body will tell you when you have “fallen down.” When you do, can you be gracious with yourself (instead of heaping self-recrimination, wallowing in guilt and shame, or making excuses), and simply act to reestablish union?
  • It’s hard to live in loving union with God and others. Will you accept God’s guidance to you, to help you do better, as he speaks to you through your body? Has God been speaking to you lately in this manner? Have you been listening?

Abba, anxiety, defensiveness, talking too much, hurrying, criticizing others – these are the “trouble lights” in my O.S. I’d rather not notice them, but if you’re going to talk to me this way, I want to listen. Please help me pay attention to the indicators and steer myself quickly back on course.

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For More: “Your Body is a Major, Not Minor Prophet” by Peter Scazzero

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Thomas Merton’s goal is his writing is the same as mine in this blog: “The purpose of a book of meditations is to teach you how to think and not to do your thinking for you. Consequently if you pick up such a book and simply read it through, you are wasting your time. As soon as any thought stimulates your mind or your heart you can put the book down because your meditation has begun.” I’m not Thomas Merton (!), yet I hope these Daily Riches will lead you into much life-enriching meditation. – Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Attending to and Living In the Present Moment (Jane Kenyon, Alan Wilson Watts & Cynthia Bourgeault) *

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

“I got out of bed on two strong legs.
It might have been otherwise.
I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach.
It might have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill to the birch wood.
All morning I did the work I love.
At noon I lay down with my mate.
It might have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks.
It might have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls,
and planned another day just like this day.
But one day, I know, it will be otherwise.”
Jane Kenyon
(Jane Kenyon died from leukemia on April 22, 1995)

“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality.” Alan Wilson Watts

“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

” … you do not know what a day may bring forth.” Proverbs 27:1b
“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

  • Are you approaching today as if you know “what it may bring forth” – planning, controlling, sucking it up, sleep-walking through it? Does your answer reveal someone who is “out of touch with reality?”
  • What’s happening to you now? Are you opening your heart to God?  relaxing in God’s unconditional acceptance of you? experiencing a rootedness that will inform your day?
  • Might not such a present moment be the most important of the day – the most real, most formative, most strategic? Imagine being oblivious to it due to what seemed an “all-powerfully causative past [or] an absorbingly important future.”

Abba, today may my soul be “as light as a feather, as fluid as water, simple as a child, as easily moved as a ball, so as to receive and follow all the impressions of grace.” (J. P. de Caussade)

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For More: Collected Poems by Jane Kenyon

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These Daily Riches are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in 400 words or less. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others as we seek to find our satisfaction in our unfailingly loving God. (Psalm 90:14) I appreciate your interest! – Bill (Psalm 90:14)