Category Archives: awe and wonder

Daily Riches: Man As a Consort of God (Abraham Heschel)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Being the Beloved, Loving Union with God, The Love of God

“To the prophet, God does not reveal himself in an abstract absoluteness, but in a specific and unique way – in a personal and intimate relation to the world. God does not simply command and expect obedience; He is also moved and affected by what happens in the world and he reacts accordingly. Events and human actions arouse in Him joy or sorrow, pleasure or wrath. He is not conceived as judging facts, so to speak, ‘objectively,’ in detached impassibility. He reacts in an intimate and subjective manner…. Quite obviously in the Biblical view, man’s deeds can move Him, affect Him, grieve Him, or, on the other hand, gladden and please Him. This notion that God can be intimately affected, that He possesses not merely intelligence and will, but also feeling and pathos, basically defines the prophetic consciousness of God.

…the God of Israel is a God Who loves, a God Who is Known to, and concerned with, man. He not only rules the world in the majesty of His might and wisdom, but reacts intimately to the events of history. …God does not stand outside the range of human suffering and sorrow. He is personally involved in, even stirred by, the conduct and fate of man. Man is not only an image of God; he is a perpetual concern of God. The idea of pathos adds a new dimension to human existence. Whatever man does affects not only his own life, but also the life of God insofar as it is directed to man. The import of man raises him beyond the level of mere creature. He is a consort, a partner, a factor in the life of God.” Abraham Heschel

“But then I will win her back once again.
    I will lead her into the desert
    and speak tenderly to her there….
She will give herself to me there,
    as she did long ago when she was young,
    when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt.
When that day comes,” says the Lord,
    “you will call me ‘my husband’
    instead of ‘my master.’”
Hosea 2:14-16

 Moving From Head to Heart

  • Does a God of pathos challenge your understanding of God? Can you allow Biblical language to critique what you may have picked up elsewhere?
  • To refer to man as “a consort, a partner … of God” seems shocking, even outrageous. And yet…. Do you think of God as a lover? hurt by your rejections? gladdened by your love?
  • “… it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.” (Emerson) How is your vision of God shaping you?

Abba, may I bring you much joy.

For More: Between God and Man by Abraham Heschel

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Thanks for reading “Daily Riches!”  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: God’s Gift and Our Need of Diversity In the Church (Debbie Thomas)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Community & the Church, Insiders and Outsiders, Loving Well

“In the New Testament Pentecost story Luke tells, the Holy Spirit descended on 120 believers in Jerusalem on the fiftieth day after Jesus’ resurrection. The Spirit empowered them to testify to God’s great deeds, emboldened the apostle Peter to preach to a bewildered crowd of Jewish skeptics, and drew three thousand converts in one day. For Christians, Pentecost marks the birthday story of the Church. And what a fantastical birthday story it is, full of details to challenge the imagination. Tongues of fire. Rushing winds. Accusations of drunkenness. Mass baptism. One could spend years unpacking these details. But here’s the one I find most riveting: ‘All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.’  ‘At this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.’ Christians often speak of Pentecost as the reversal of Babel, the Old Testament story in which God divided and scattered human communities by multiplying our languages. But in fact, Pentecost didn’t reverse Babel; it perfected and blessed it. When the Holy Spirit came, he didn’t restore humanity to a common language; he declared all languages holy and equally worthy of God’s stories …he wove multilingualism into the very fabric of the Church. …Languages carry the full weight of their respective cultures, histories, psychologies, and spiritualities. To speak one language as opposed to another is to orient oneself differently in the world – to see differently, hear differently, process and punctuate reality differently. …If this is true, then what does it mean that the Holy Spirit empowered the first Christians to speak in an unmatched diversity of languages? Was God saying, in effect, that his Church, from its very inception, needed to honor the boundless variety and creativity of human voices?  That he was calling it to proclaim the great deeds of God in every tongue – not merely because multiculturalism is progressive and fashionable, or because the church is a ‘politically correct’ institution – but because God’s deeds themselves demand such diverse tellings? Could it be that there is no single language on earth that can capture the deeds of God? Here’s another detail I love about Pentecost: when the disciples and their friends began to speak in foreign languages, the crowds gathered outside their meeting place understood them. And this – the fact of their comprehension – was what confused them. They were not confused by the message itself; the message came through with perfect clarity in their respective languages. What the crowds found baffling was that God would condescend to speak to them in their own mother-tongues. That he would welcome them so intimately, with words and expressions hearkening back to their birthplaces, their childhoods, their beloved cities, countries, and cultures of origin. As if to say, ‘This Spirit-drenched place, this fledgling church, this new Body of Christ, is yours. You don’t have to feel like outsiders here; we speak your language, too. Come in. Come in and feel at home.’ …I wonder what it would be like if the Church allowed the Holy Spirit to transform it into a place of deep and implicit belonging – not for the few, but for everyone. I wonder how our ministries would need to change so that the crowds listening outside our doors would hear ‘Welcome!’ in languages they comprehend.” Debbie Thomas

“with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
Revelation 5:9

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Is there sufficient diversity in your church?
  • Do you make a point to reach out to “different” people with God’s love?
  • How can you be part of God’s “welcome” to outsiders?

Abba, use our many voices in the telling of your deeds.

For More: “Against Christianese” by Debbie Thomas

In today’s post I broke my own rule of “400 words” or less. This was just to important and beautiful not to share. Thanks for reading. – Bill

Daily Riches: The Power of a Pregnant Pause (Courtney E. Martin)

Posted on by under Awareness, awe and wonder, Mindfulness

“Designers have to resist habituation in order to be transcendentally successful. They have to build in a pregnant pause and ask themselves questions about the status quo. They have to have beginner’s minds. They have to wonder, as they reach for their toothbrush and toothpaste: Is this the best shape for a container filled with paste? Is this the best material for bristles? Is this the right sized handle? In short, a designer has to constantly resist settling for … ‘Because we’ve always done it this way.’ … [and] I don’t think it’s just great designers that have an awareness of how their own habits dull their capacity to be creative, to invent, to expect more … it’s great humans that do. One of my favorite mantras in the Buddhist tradition is, ‘May I see what I do. May I do it differently. May I make this a way of life.’ …Habits are part of what makes our lives livable. [but]…When we get too attached to these habits, we risk losing our sense of wonder and our potential for the catalytic experience. When we get too comfortable, we risk falling asleep on the job — the job being living an awake life. So it has me thinking: what are the habits that I need to or, better yet, want to shed? What are the habits filled with pleasure, the ones that make me feel grounded and capable of diving back into the fray of my busy life; in contrast, what are the habits that dull me? …My biggest ambitions to resist habituation are rooted in my relationships. I want to be less dutiful. I want to pause before I get busy anticipating everyone else’s needs and making sure that no one suffers or fights. My wiser self knows that both can lead to transformation. …I want to spend less time on guilt and more on joy. I want to choose my choices.” Courtney Martin

“not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” Hebrews 10:25

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Which of your habits bring you life? Which dull you?
  • Can you develop a mantra to help you “resist habituation?” … to be “transcendentally successful?”
  • How can you harness the power of habituation for spiritual transformation?

Abba, may I see what I do, do it differently, and make this a way of life.

For More: “The Pregnant Pause” by Courtney Martin

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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 Only Safe Foundation for Spiritual Work (Evelyn Underhill)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, awe and wonder, Being and Doing, Contemplation and Activism, Loving Union with God

“The beginning, then, of a strong and fruitful inner life … requires, not merely the acceptance but the full first-hand apprehension, of the ruling truth of the richly living spaceless and unchanging God; blazing in the spiritual sky, yet intimately present within the world of events, moulding and conditioning every phase of life. The religion of the priest, if it is to give power and convey certitude, must be from first to last a theocentric religion; and it must be fed by a devotional practice based upon that objective Power and Presence, and neither on your own subjective feelings, cravings, and needs, nor on the feelings, cravings, and needs of those among whom you work. … only a spirituality which thus puts the whole emphasis on the Reality of God, perpetually turning to Him, losing itself in Him, refusing to allow even the most pressing work or practical problems, even sin and failure, to distract from God, only this is a safe foundation for spiritual work. …The inner life means an ever-deepening awareness of all this: the slowly growing and concrete realization of a Life and a Spirit within us immeasurably exceeding our own, and absorbing, transmuting, supernaturalizing our lives by all ways and at all times. It means the loving sense of God, as so immeasurably beyond us as to keep us in a constant attitude of humblest awe and yet so deeply and closely with us, as to invite our clinging trust and loyal love.”

“apart from me you can do nothing”
Jesus in John 15:5
 .

Moving From the Head to the Heart

Here are the questions that this reading forced me to ask:

  • Am I perpetually turning to God, losing myself in Him?”
  • Will I refuse to allow either pressing work or sinful failure to move my attention from God himself as my only “safe foundation for spiritual work?”
  • Is the life that I offer to others that which immeasurably exceeds my own? Is my life and ministry supernaturalized “by all ways and at all times?”
  • And then – Have I structured my days so that I “recollect myself” (Merton) or “recenter myself” on this God who must be my all in all if I am to keep from living “apart from” him?

Abba, may my faith be theocentric, my life supernaturalized, my heart perpetually turning to you.

For More: Concerning the Inner Life by Evelyn Underhill

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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: Galumphing at God’s Heels (William J. O’Malley, and Matt Groening)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Embracing Losses and Limits, Humility
“The big black Lab galumphs beside me as I walk,
tongue lolling, eyes intent upon the stick.
He’s submissive to my whistle, not my trifling talk,
nor well-wrought reasons, much less rhetoric.
He trots ahead and turns, impatient for the throw,
snaps off a bark, then lumbers halfway back.
He cocks his head and huffs to tell me I’m too slow.
I throw and off he goes, a blur of black.
The world exists for him: the stick, the roadside, me.
We’re here to serve his simple solipsism.
Except for unpredictable caprice, he’s free,
without the humbling need for baptism.
 .
“To save him from a truck, I choke his collar short.
What earthly link? That noise, this loss of breath?
He punctuates his protest with a snort;
until they meet, no need to ponder death.
What a narrow scope of truth his mind explores:
betrayal, hunger, curiosity.
He knows my mind about as I do yours;
my thoughts as closed to him as yours to me.
How humbling to confront one’s hubris, open-eyed,
to fathom what this big black mongrel feels.
I’d thought that you and I were striding side by side,
when all the time I was galumphing at your heels.”
William J. O’Malley
 .
 “When I was a child, I used to talk, think, argue like a child–who has
just enough grasp of the truth to be thoroughly confused.
When I grew up, I was somewhat better than that, but hardly perfect.
I still see God through a smear of distorting glass.
Ah! but then we will see God face-to-face!
Now I know God so incompletely; then,
I will know God through and through, as God knows me now.”
1 Corinthians 13:8-12 (O’Malley paraphrase)
.

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Remember when Bart tries to explain to “Santa’s Little Helper”, how his disobedience is leading to trouble? The dog wants to please, but just can’t understand. He hears only noise, thinks only of food. Imagine the challenge God has in explaining things to you.
  • None of us are “striding side by side” with God – just “galumphing at [His] heels.” Have you made peace with this sometimes difficult reality?

Abba, I’m no longer thoroughly confused but I still don’t really understand myself or you. I look forward to when I will know you “as you know me now.”

For More: Daily Prayers for Busy People by William J. O’Malley

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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 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: Knowing and Not Knowing (Richard Rohr and Eugene Ionesco)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Contemplative Prayer, Faith and Doubt, Mysticism

“Over-explanation separates us from astonishment.” Eugene Ionesco

“We need transformed people today, and not just people with answers. I do not want my too many words to separate you from astonishment or to provide you with a substitute for your own inner experience. We all need, forever, what Jesus described as ‘the beginner’s mind’ of a curious child. A beginner’s mind … is the best path for spiritual wisdom. Tobin Hart writes: ‘Instead of grasping for certainty, wisdom rides the question, lives the question…. When the quest for certainty and control is pushed to the background, the possibility of wonder returns. Wonder provides a gateway to wise insight.’ Incorporating negative and self-critical thinking is essential to true prophetic understanding. At the same time, we must also trust that we are held irrevocably in the mystery of God’s love, without fully understanding it. Alongside all our knowing, accompanying every bit of our knowing, must be the humble ‘knowing that we do not know.’ That’s why the great tradition of prayer is balanced by both kataphatic knowing, through images and words, and apophatic knowing, through silence, images, and beyond words. Apophatic knowing is the empty space around the words, allowing God to fill in all the gaps in an ‘unspeakable’ way. Strangely enough, this unknowing is a new kind of understanding. We have a word for it: faith, a kind of knowing that doesn’t need to know and yet doesn’t dismiss knowledge either; a kind of knowing that doesn’t need to hold everything itself because, at a deeper level, it knows it is being held.” Richard Rohr

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly,
but then we will see face to face.
Now I know only in part;
then I will know fully,
even as I have been fully known.”
1 Corinthians 13:12

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you on a “quest for certainty?” Can you relax and let God “fill in all the gaps” where mystery or paradox prevails?
  • Does “over-explanation” (“too many words”) interfere with your “inner experience” of God? Has extensive doctrinal explanation led to “transformation” for you?
  • Are you willing to admit mystery? Are you committed to living humbly as one who can “know only in part?”

Abba, don’t let me spoil my relationship with you by too much certainty or too many words.

For More: “A Story Bigger Than My Own” by Debie Thomas

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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: God … As He Really Is (Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Embracing Losses and Limits, Humility, Learning Your Proper Place

“So much depends on our idea of God. Yet no idea of God, however pure and perfect, is adequate to express God as God really is. Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about God.” Thomas Merton

“God cannot be understood; he cannot be grasped by the human mind. The truth escapes our human capacities. The only way to come close to it is by a constant emphasis on the limitation of our human capacities to ‘have’ or to ‘hold’ the truth. We can neither explain God nor his presence in human history. As soon as we identify God with any specific event or situation, we play God and distort the truth. We can only be faithful in our affirmation that God has not deserted us but has called us in the middle of all the unexplainable absurdities of life. It is very important to be deeply aware of this. There is a great and subtle temptation to explain to myself or others where God is working and where not, and when he is present and when not, but nobody, no Christian, no priest, no monk has any ‘special’ knowledge about God. God cannot be limited by any human concept or prediction. He is greater than our mind and heart and perfectly free to reveal himself where and when he wants. . . After having done everything to make some space for God, it is still God who comes on his own initiative.” Henri Nouwen

“He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”
Isaiah 53:3

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you know people who know “where God is working and where not?” …”when he is present and when not?” What is your response to them?
  • The disciples lived with Jesus for over three years and didn’t understand him, and the people of Jesus’ day misunderstood and rejected him. If you know God by faith in Jesus Christ, do you still have a profound sense of the “limitation” of your knowledge of God? If so, how does that affect you?
  • What does your idea of God tell you about yourself?

Abba, give me great pause when I’m tempted to box you in, define you or explain you – to myself or to others.

For More: Show Me the Way by Henri Nouwen

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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: 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: 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: The Knowable, Unknowable God (Anthony de Mello, Dallas Willard, Thomas Merton and Mark Twain)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Embracing Losses and Limits

“A saint was once given the gift of speaking the language of the ants. He approached one, who seemed the scholarly type, and asked, ‘What is the Almighty like? Is he in any way similar to the ant?’ Said the scholar, ‘The Almighty? Certainly not! We ants, you see, have only one sting. But the Almighty, he has two!’ …When asked what heaven was like, the ant-scholar solemnly replied, ‘There we shall be just like Him, having two stings each, only smaller ones.’ A bitter controversy rages among religious schools of thought as to where exactly the second sting will be located in the heavenly body of the ant.” Anthony de Mello

“Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.” Thomas Merton

“We live at the mercy of our ideas, we would be wise to reflect carefully on those we have about God.” Dallas Willard

“In the beginning God made man in His image, and man has been returning the favor ever since.” Mark Twain

“This is what Yahweh says:
‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
or the strong man boast of his strength
or the rich man boast of his riches,
but let him who boasts boast about this:
that he understands and knows me.”’
Jeremiah 9:23-24

“Now this is eternal life:
that they know you,
the only true God,
and Jesus Christ,
whom you have sent.”
Jesus in John 17:3

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • “What is the Almighty like?” How would you answer the question?
  • When you think about God how much does he resemble you (in values, temperament, perspective, gender)?
  • Can you live with the tension involved in the idea that you truly know God and at the same time don’t really know him? Can you entrust yourself to a God that you can’t accurately perceive or describe?

Abba, thank you for revealing yourself in Jesus your Son. Help me to strip away my preconceptions and prejudices when I look at him – and when I think about you.

For More: The Song of the Bird by Anthony de Mello

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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: Your Power to Crush or to Bless (Mark Buchanan)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Downward Mobility, Ego Issues

“‘Look, Daddy! What’s that?’
I stopped talking with my neighbor and looked down.
‘A beetle,’ I said.
David was impressed and pleased with the discovery of this fancy, colorful creature.
My neighbor lifted his foot and stepped on the insect, giving it an extra twist into the dirt.
‘That ought to do it,’ he laughed.
David looked up at me, waiting for an explanation, a reason. I did not wish to embarrass my neighbor, but then David turned, picked up the hose, and continued spraying the raspberries.
That night, just before he turned off the lights in his bedroom, David whispered. ‘I like’d that beetle, Daddy.’
‘I did too,’ I whispered back.

“I used to think the spiritual life was mostly about finding and using our gifts for God’s glory…. More and more I think it is not this, not first, not most. At root, the spiritual life consists in choosing the way of littleness. I become less so that Jesus might become greater. Its essence is No–No to ourselves, our impulses and cravings, our acts of self-promotion and self-vindication, our use of power for its own sake. It calls us to deny ourselves possessions, rights, conquests that we’re temped to claim just because we can. It is growing, day by day, into the same attitude that Christ had, and by exactly the same means: emptying ourselves, giving ourselves. It is refusing to grasp what we think is owed us and instead embracing what we think is beneath us. Simply behold, in love and wonder, what you have strength to crush. Exercise power–power you might use otherwise–to serve, bless, protect.” Mark  Buchanan

“It will be good for those servants
whose master finds them watching when he comes.
… he will dress himself to serve,
will have them recline at the table
and will come and wait on them.”
Luke 12:37

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Choosing “the way of littleness” is usually counter-cultural. Is this something you aspire to do?
  • The phrase “growing day by day” reminds us that spiritual growth is a slow process. What can you do daily to practice “emptying and giving” yourself?
  • Do you think of yourself as having “strength to crush” others? Think about your relationships with this in mind.

Abba, I want to serve, bless, and protect, not harm. Remind me when I go astray.

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: 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: “Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There” (Philip Simmons, Robert Barron, and Eugene Peterson)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Hurry Sickness, Rest and Relaxation, Silence, Simplicity, Stillness, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

“… our busyness—whether of body or of mind—is often a distraction, a way of avoiding others, avoiding intimacy, avoiding ourselves. We keep busy to push back our fears, our loneliness, our self-doubt, our questions about purposes and ends. We want to know we matter, we want to know our lives are worthwhile. And when we’re not sure, we work that much harder, we worry that much more. In the face of our uncertainty, we keep busy.  …What is it, then, that restores us to a better version of ourselves, that returns us to our firm sense of goodness—both our own and the world’s? Perhaps it’s a question of grace: a reflected sunset flares in the windows of a skyscraper, a sheet of newspaper takes flight down an empty street, and suddenly we find ourselves in a world made luminous with wonder. … And so it is: the world itself can call us out of our preoccupations, our worries, our lists and agendas. In such moments our attention is arrested, quite literally stopped, and the world seems to say to us: “Don’t just do something, stand there.”  Philip Simmons

“It is a commonplace of the spiritual masters that the deepest part of the soul likes to go slow, since it seeks to savor rather than to accomplish; it wants to rest in and contemplate the good rather than to hurry off to another place.” Robert Barron

“When we are noisy and when we are hurried, we are incapable of intimacy–deep, personal, complex relationships. …like children lost in the woods, the more lost we feel, the faster we run.” Eugene Peterson

“Do not be afraid, little flock,
for your Father has been pleased
to give you the kingdom.”
Jesus in Luke 12:32

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you able to do nothing, to just “stand there” rather than “hurry off to another place?”
  • If you’re always rushing, can you begin to ask God to show you why that is?
  • Does your pace of life allow for “deep, personal, complex relationships?” for awe?

Abba, help me understand the worry and hurry that drives me. Help me stop for wonder. Restore me to a better version of myself.

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*For More: Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life by Philip Simmons

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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.”