Category Archives: Loving Union with God

Daily Riches: God Disguised In Your Day (Paula D’Arcy, Jim Palmer, Dallas Willard, Richard Rohr, Frederick Buechner and Rosalind Goforth)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Being and Doing, Being the Beloved, Emotions and Spirituality, Loving Union with God, Mindfulness, Mysticism, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

“God comes to you disguised as your life.” Paula D’Arcy*

“Listen to your life.” Frederick Buechner

“You don’t need to find a spiritual path. Your life is your spiritual path. The next moment is your teacher. Whatever arises next, make it your spiritual path. What does the present moment require of you?
Nothing? Then nothing is your path.
To notice something? Then noticing is your path.
To act? Then your action is the path.
To give love? Then expressing love is your path.
To create? Then creating is your path.
To eat? Then eating is your path.
To be aware of your true Self? Then awareness is your path.
To shed tears? Then your tears are the path.
To be courageous? Then courage is your path.
To notice a pattern of thought or behavior? Then your noticing is the path.
To seek? Then seeking is your path.
To let go of seeking? Then the cessation of seeking is your path.
To be content? Then being content is your path.
To be struck by beauty? Then awe and wonder is your path.
To be seized by bliss and ecstasy? Then bliss and ecstasy is your path.”
Jim Palmer

“In a life of participation in God’s kingdom rule, we are not to make things happen, but only to be honestly willing and eager to be made available. …learning to live in such a way that we can receive the loving presence and relationship in our lives that is present in the trinity.” Dallas Willard

“Knowing God’s presence is simply a matter of awareness, of fully allowing and enjoying the present moment.  …Then life makes sense. Once I can see the Mystery here, and trust the Mystery even in this little piece of clay that I am, in this moment of time that I am–then I can also see it in you, and eventually in all things. …[This] is simply pure and unbounded awareness on our part.  …God is in all things precisely in God’s ever newness and God’s ever possibility.” Richard Rohr

“This is the day the Lord has made.” Psalm 118:24

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Can you remember today to listen as God comes to you “disguised” as your day?
  • Are you willing and eager to experience God’s loving presence in your day, no matter what that involves?
  • Can you try to maintain awareness of “God’s ever newness and God’s ever possibility” in your day?

“Lord, if this that I am now going through is the right road home, then I will not murmur!” [Rosalind Goforth]

For More: Now and Then by Frederick Buechner

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*Paula D’Arcy was twenty-seven years old and three months pregnant when a drunk driver killed her husband and her one-year-old child.

Daily Riches: The Mystics and Prayer (Abraham Heschel, Macrina Wiederkehr, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Emily Dickenson, Soren Kierkegaard, and David Benner)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, awe and wonder, Contemplative Prayer, devotions, Loving Union with God, Mysticism, thirsting and longing for God

“Our need of Him is but an echo of His need of us.” Abraham Heschel

“I strain toward God; God strains toward me.
I ache for God; God aches for me.
Prayer is mutual yearning,
mutual straining,
mutual aching.”
Macrina Wiederkehr

“Closer is he than breathing
and nearer than hands and feet.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson

“The soul should always stand ajar.”
Emily Dickenson

“Always be in a state of expectancy, and see that you leave room for God to come in as he likes.” Oswald Chambers

“Blessed are the single-hearted, for they shall enjoy much peace. If you refuse to be hurried and pressed, if you stay your soul on God, nothing can keep you from that clearness of spirit which is life and peace.” Amy Carmichael

“Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God.”  Soren Kierkegaard

“Just imagine how different your life would be if moment by moment you were constantly open to God. Think of how much your experience of yourself, others and the world would change if you were continuously attuned to the loving presence of God and allowed the life of God to flow into and through you with each breath. …It holds the possibility of helping us move from occasional acts of praying to a life of prayer.” David Benner

“For in him we live and move and exist.
As some of your own poets have said,
‘We are his offspring.’”
Acts 17:28
St. Paul, quoting Epimenides and Aratus

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Can you imagine a God who “needs” you? …who “aches for you?” (Heschel is an expert in the Hebrew prophets where these ideas recur.)
  • Can you imagine a God who is “closer than your hands and feet?” …in whom you “live and move and exist?”
  • Can the mystic’s aspiration to “creep into God” motivate you to deeper intimacy – to keep your “soul ajar?” … in “a state of expectancy?” …to “leave room for God to come as he likes?” …to “allow his life to flow through you with each breath?”

Abba, satisfy my longing for deeper intimacy with you.

For More: A Tree Full of Angels by Macrina Wiederkehr

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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: The Pinnacle of God’s Creation (Gregory Boyd, Jonathan Edwards, Augustine)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, awe and wonder, Being the Beloved, Emotions and Spirituality, Loving Union with God, The Love of God, thirsting and longing for God, Wholeness and Brokenness

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Augustine

“As the New Testament and the church tradition teach, the life of God is nothing other than the perfect love that eternally unites the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and this Triune God spoke creation into being with the ultimate goal of inviting humans to share in this life. …[Jonathan] Edwards painted a portrait of the Trinity in which the love and joy of the three divine persons was so full and intense, it simply could not be contained. God’s fullness thus yearned to be expressed and replicated by sharing it with others. So this fullness overflowed, as it were, as God brought forth a creation that mirrored his triune beauty. And the pinnacle of this creation is created beings whose yearning for God mirrors, in a small way, his yearning for them. But whereas God’s yearning comes out of his fullness, our yearning comes out of emptiness. It’s a beautiful arrangement. The God of overflowing love longs to pour his love into others, so he creates beings that long for his love to be poured into them. But in my opinion … it wasn’t God’s original intention for us to ever go a moment with this longing unsatisfied. Living without the fullness of God’s love is a reality we have brought on ourselves through our rebellion, and it’s completely unnatural to us. And try as we may to run from it or numb it, the pain of our unnatural emptiness is acute and incurable. The profundity of our emptiness is the negative reflection of the profundity of the fullness of the One we long for.” Gregory Boyd

“And may you have the power to understand …
how wide, how long, how high, and how deep [God’s] love is.”
Ephesians 3:18

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Imagine a God whose eternal essence consists of “perfect love that eternally unites the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Now imagine that God choosing to love you and make God’s “home” in you. What feelings arise?
  • Have you ever thought of your deep-seated yearning for intimacy with God as mirroring God’s deep-seated yearning for intimacy with you?
  • Have you ever thought of the profundity of your existential “emptiness” as the “negative reflection of the profundity of the fullness” God wants for you?

Abba, make your home in me.

For More: Benefit of the Doubt by Gregory Boyd

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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)

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: The Acid Test of Theology (Dallas Willard)

Posted on by under Humility, Jesus the Savior, Joy, Loving Union with God, Mystery, The Love of God, Worship

“Modern attempts to think about God independently of historical revelation have been thoroughly victimized by currents of nineteenth– and twentieth-century philosophy that simply make knowledge of God …an impossibility.  …This forces one to handle the texts and traditions of Jesus in such a way that he can never bring us to a personal God whom we can love with all our being. But things often turn out little better for theology on the right. It tends to be satisfied with having the right doctrines or traditions and to stop there without ever moving on to consuming admiration of, delight in, and devotion to the God of the universe. On the one hand, these are treated as not necessary, because we have the right answers; and on the other hand, we are given little, if any, example and teaching concerning how to move on to honest and full-hearted love of God. The acid test for any theology is this: Is the God presented one that can be loved, heart, soul, mind, and strength? If the thoughtful, honest answer is; ‘Not really,’ then we need to look elsewhere or deeper. It does not really matter how sophisticated intellectually or doctrinally our approach is. If it fails to set a lovable God – a radiant, happy, friendly, accessible, and totally competent being – before ordinary people, we have gone wrong. We should not keep going in the same direction, but turn around (repent?) and take another road. …The theologian who does not love God is in great danger, and in danger of doing great harm….” Dallas Willard

“If I have the gift of prophecy
and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge
… but do not have love,
I am nothing.”
1 Corinthians 13:2

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

Jesus hoped we would know him, love him, and follow him. After his resurrection it became clear we also should worship him. It doesn’t always work that way.

  • Has your philosophy or theology made a loving relationship with Jesus impossible for you?
  • Has fighting for the truth (right doctrine) become more important to you than loving others well (right relationships)?
  • Does your faith rest in a God who is “a lovable God – a radiant, happy, friendly, accessible, and totally competent being?” Will you determine to look “elsewhere or deeper” for that God if necessary?

Abba, may I know you in truth, in spite of your mystery and my hang-ups.

For More: The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard

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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: Pastors, Churches and Second-hand Spirituality (Pete Scazzero)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Change Yourself First, contemplative virtues, devotions, Loving Union with God, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation

“The vast majority of people in our churches have a second-hand spirituality, i.e. they live off the spirituality of others. Because people attend our weekend worship services, participate in our programs, give money and serve, we assume they are in a vital personal relationship of loving union with Jesus. We assume wrong. They are not. Ask the people you serve about their time with Jesus each day: ‘How often do you meet with Him around Scripture and prayer? What do you do, and for how long? How might silence, solitude, Sabbath, spiritual companionship, and study fit into your life?’ Ask for specifics. You are in for a shock. The world has changed dramatically. We have underestimated the magnitude of information overload, the moral decline of Western culture, and the impact of the Internet/social media in altering our brain circuits. …It doesn’t matter what we preach. Unless our people spend intentional time cultivating their own first-hand relationship with the living Jesus, we are simply shuffling chairs on the Titanic. A Christ-follower develops a posture of receptivity through spiritual disciplines that consciously help them develop the spiritual dimensions of our lives. ‘Like an artist who wishes to develop painting skills, or an athlete who desires a strong and flexible body, a person of faith chooses freely to adopt certain life patterns, habits, and commitments to grow spiritually.’ (Marjorie Thompson) How many of our people approach following Jesus with the intentionality of an artist or athlete? The answer is: ‘Not many.’ Helping our people develop a first-hand relationship with Jesus in today’s world is very hard work. But if we don’t wrestle with this, who will?” Pete Scazzero

“Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters,
and just as you have us as a model,
keep your eyes on those who live as we do.”
Philippians 3:17

 Moving From Head to Heart

  • Pastor, are you intentionally “cultivating your own first-hand relationship with the living Jesus?”
  • The status quo involves people hearing from God mostly through their clergy. Does your approach to ministry perpetuate that reality, or address it?
  • The status quo often involves giving people well-meaning but vague advice (“Read your Bible. Pray more. Try harder.”), but people need explicit spiritual direction. In your ministry, are you giving your people the tools they need to “develop a first-hand relationship with Jesus?”

Abba, lead our leaders as they lead your people.

For More: The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Pete Scazzero (planned release June 30, 2015)

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. Please follow and share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

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

Daily Riches: A Dialogue of Love That Never Stops (Thomas Merton and Elizabeth of the Trinity)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Being the Beloved, Contemplative Prayer, Loving Union with God, Meditation, Mysticism, The Divine Gaze, thirsting and longing for God

“This is the real end of meditation – it teaches you how to become aware of the presence of God; and most of all it aims at bringing you to a state of almost constant loving attention to God, and dependence on Him. [It teaches] …a man how to work himself free of created things and temporal concerns, in which he finds only confusion and sorrow, and enter into a conscious and loving contact with God….” Thomas Merton

“I love to penetrate beyond the veil of the soul to this inner sanctuary where we live alone with God. He wants us entirely to himself, and is making there within us a cherished solitude. Listen to everything that is being sung … in his heart. It is Love, the infinite love that envelops us and desires to give us a share … in all his blessedness. The whole Blessed Trinity dwells in us, the whole of that mystery which will be our vision in heaven. Let it be our cloister. You tell me that your life is passed there. So is mine. I am ‘Elizabeth of the Trinity’ – Elizabeth disappearing, losing herself, allowing herself to be invaded by the Three. Let us live for love, always surrendered, immolating ourselves at every moment, by doing God’s will without searching for extraordinary things. Then let us make ourselves quite tiny, allowing ourselves to be carried, like a babe in it’s mother’s arms, by him who is our all…. In the morning let us wake in Love. All day long let us surrender ourselves to Love, by doing the will of God, under his gaze, with him, in him, for him alone…. And then, when evening comes, after a dialogue of love that has never stopped in our hearts, let us go to sleep still in love. And if we are aware of any faults, let us simply abandon them to Love, which is a consuming fire….” Elizabeth of the Trinity

“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine….”
Song of Solomon 6:3

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Can you imagine giving “constant loving attention to God?  … living a day under (and aware of) his gaze?
  • What are you doing to become more aware of God’s presence in your day? …to become less aware of “temporal concerns?” … to be better at “attending” to him?
  • Can you simply abandon yourself and your faults to Love?

Abba, before I die, may I experience at least one day under your gaze, with you, in you alone, where a dialogue of love between us never stops.

For More: Voices 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. –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Do Catholics Need to be Converted? (Richard Rohr and Dallas Willard)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Loving Union with God, Spiritual Formation

“Neither [Catholics or Protestants have] really let the Word of God guide their lives. Catholics need to be converted to giving the Scriptures some actual authority in their lives. Luther wasn’t wrong when he said that most Catholics did not read the Bible. Most Catholics are still not that interested in the Bible…. I have been a priest for 42 years now, and I would sadly say that most Catholics would rather hear quotes from saints, Popes, and bishops, the current news, or funny stories, if they are to pay attention. If I quote strongly from the Sermon on the Mount, they are almost throwaway lines. I can see Catholics glaze over because they have never read the New Testament, much less studied it, or been guided by it. I am very sad to have to admit this. It is the Achilles heel of much of the Catholic world, priests included. …Both Catholics and Protestants (Orthodox too!) found a way to do their own thing while posturing friendship with Jesus.” Richard Rohr*

“…relationship with God, as with any person, soon requires a contribution from us, which will largely consist of study [of the Word of God]. Calvin Miller well remarks: ‘Mystics without study are only spiritual romantics who want relationship without effort.’ …We not only read and hear and inquire, but we meditate on what comes before us; that is, we withdraw into silence where we prayerfully and steadily focus upon it. In this way its meaning for us can emerge and form us as God works in the depths of our heart, mind, and soul.” Dallas Willard

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” Psalm 119:105

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you perhaps guilty of “posturing friendship with Jesus” (just going through the motions), or are you making a real effort to cultivate a “relationship” with God?
  • Do you routinely make time for God to “work in the depths of your heart, mind, and soul” through his Word?
  • Are you part of the solution or the problem in your church? The leaders in your church – are they part of the solution or the problem? What can change?

Abba, thank you for working through your church, in spite of many things. Please revive your church.

For More: Yes, And by Richard Rohr

*Don’t worry, tomorrow we look at the Protestants!

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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: Statio …Do Consciously What You Would Do Mechanically (Joan Chittister)

Posted on by under Hurry Sickness, Loving Union with God, Mindfulness, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

Statio is “the practice of stopping one thing before we begin another. …the time between times. …In monastic spirituality it is common for the community to gather … for a few minutes together in the chapel itself before intoning the opening hymn of the office. My novice mistress, in fact, insisted that we all be in chapel five minutes before the bell rang for prayer, an expectation the logic of which managed to elude me for years. After all, ‘an idle mind is the devil’s workshop,’ the Puritan in me knew well. ‘Every minute counts,’ I’d learned somewhere along the way. …Think of all the things that could have been done in that additional five minutes a day or thirty-five minutes a week or two hours and twenty minutes a month or twenty-eight hours a year…. Work, valuable work, could have been done and I could still have made it on time for prayer. It took years to realize that [it was] … highly unlikely, though, that my mind would have been there too. The practice of statio is meant to center us and make us conscious of what we’re about to do and make us present to the God who is present to us. Statio is the desire to do consciously what I might otherwise do mechanically. Statio is the virtue of presence. If I am present to this child before I dress her, then the dressing becomes an act of creation. …If I am present to the flower before I cut it, then life becomes precious. If I am present to the time of prayer before I pray, then prayer becomes the juncture of the human with the Divine. We have learned well in our time to go through life nonstop. Now it is time to learn to collect ourselves from time to time so that God can touch us in the most hectic of moments. Statio is the monastic practice that sets out to get our attention before life goes by in one great blur and God becomes an idea out there somewhere rather than an ever present reality here.” Joan Chittister

“You …set me in your presence forever.” Psalm 41:12

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Imagine pausing to commit the last thing to God before beginning the next thing.
  • Imagine lifting up the next thing to God before you begin it.
  • Imagine the sanity, clarity and sense of God’s presence that could come from this practice.

Abba, help me to regularly come to a full stop, recalibrating, increasingly present to you.

For More: Wisdom Distilled From the Daily by Joan Chittister

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In “Daily Riches” 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: 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: Prayer and the Empty Chair (Anthony de Mello, D. L. Moody)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Being the Beloved, Contemplative Prayer, Loving Union with God, Mysticism, Prayer

“I [heard] the story of a priest who went to visit a patient in his home. He noticed an empty chair at the patient’s bedside and asked what it was doing there. The patient said, ‘I had placed Jesus on that chair and was talking to him before you arrived…. For years I found it extremely difficult to pray until a friend explained to me that prayer was a matter of talking to Jesus. He told me to place an empty chair nearby, to imagine Jesus sitting on that chair, and to speak with him and listen to what he says to me in reply. I’ve had no difficulty praying ever since.’ Some days later … the daughter of the patient came to the rectory to inform the priest that her father had died. She said, ‘I left him alone for a couple of hours. He seemed so peaceful. When I got back to the room I found him dead. I noticed a strange thing, though: his head was resting not on the bed but on a chair that was beside his bed.’

“Imagine that Jesus is by your side all through the day. Speak with him frequently in the midst of your occupations. Sometimes all you will be able to do is glance at him, communicate with him without words…. Saint Teresa, who was a great advocate of this form of prayer, promises that it will not be long before the person who prays in this way will experience intense union with the Lord. People sometimes ask me how they can meet the Risen Lord in their lives. I know of no better way to suggest to them than this one.” Anthony de Mello

“A rule I have had for years is: to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal friend. His is not a creed, a mere doctrine, but it is He Himself we have.” D. L. Moody

“you are my friends….”
Jesus in John 15:15

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you have a “method” to make God “very present” in prayer?
  • Can you let yourself do something as simple as the “empty chair?”
  • When you think of Christ, is it first as the focus of doctrine or creed, or as a “personal friend?” Does it matter?

Jesus, please make yourself very real to me when I pray.

For More: Sadhana 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: Loneliness and Fear (Robert Frost, Macrina Wiederkehr and Jim Palmer)

Posted on by under Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, Loving Union with God

“Where had I heard this wind before

Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and the day was past.
Sombre clouds in the west were massed.
Out on the porch’s sagging floor,
Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.”
Robert Frost, “Bereft”

“My loneliness attracts me to the feet of Jesus. Like a magnet I am drawn there, longing to be all one with God. The separateness I keep choosing makes me desperately homesick, and so I am willing, at last, to surrender my divided heart. I am homesick to be one with God. Union with God is the only heaven there is, and it begins here on earth. …There is someone I must become. There is someone I must be grafted onto, and how lonely I am until it is accomplished. My loneliness blesses me because it shows me that I’m not enough all by myself, and so I am impelled to reach out my arms and heart to God and to others. My loneliness blesses me because it encourages me to allow myself to be vulnerable. My loneliness blesses me because it won’t let me hide in the illusion of my self-sufficiency.” Macrina Wiederkehr

“Fear, guilt and shame can be useful on your spiritual journey. When you experience these, follow the trail back to the idea, notion, belief or concept that was the source.” Jim Palmer

“Whom have in heaven but you?
I desire you more than anything on earth.
My health may fail,
and my spirit may grow weak,
but God remains the strength of my heart;
he is mine forever.”
Psalm 73:25, 26

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Have you experienced the loneliness, the fear of being alone, with “no one left but God?”
  • Can you “follow the trail [of that feeling] back to … the belief or concept that was the source?”
  • Is there a way that your loneliness “blesses” you?

Abba, may loneliness carry me to you.

For More: A Tree Full of Angels by Macrina Wiederkehr

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

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

Daily Riches – One Year Anniversary! Thanks all!

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

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

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

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

Bill

Daily Riches: Mysticism (Richard Rohr, Daniel Clendenin, Thomas Merton)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Loving Union with God, Mysticism

“The Franciscan priest Richard Rohr has written some thirty books, many of which are variations on the same theme. Not long into this book [Eager to Love] he says as much in a footnote. The idea that ‘our deepest identity is hidden from us,’ and that the purpose of authentic religion is to help us recover our true identity in God, is ‘the core message of this entire book, and really my only message in all of my books’ (pp. 66, 276).  In this version of that theme, Rohr returns to his Franciscan roots to help us recapture the ‘experiential heart of the gospel,’ … which stands in stark contrast to spirituality that’s little more than theological concepts, religious ritual, and institutional conformity. Authentic spirituality [requires] …  ‘mysticism’ … – experiential knowledge of spiritual things, as opposed to book knowledge, secondhand knowledge, or even church knowledge.’” Daniel Clendenin

“If they [Christians] are to live as true members of Christ and radiate the divine influence among the men with whom they are in contact, they will be obliged to develop rich interior lives of union with God…. To be a Christian then, is to be committed to a deeply mystical life. … By faith one not only consents to propositions revealed by God, one not only attains to truth in a way that intelligence and reason alone cannot do, but one assents to God Himself. One receives God. One says ‘yes’ not merely to a statement about God, but to the Invisible, Infinite God Himself….” Thomas Merton

“And all of us, with our unveiled faces like mirrors
reflecting the glory of the Lord,
are being transformed into the image that we reflect
in brighter and brighter glory;
this is the working of the Lord who is the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 3:18

Moving From the Head to the Heart

It’s possible master knowledge about God (“book knowledge”) and still not have “experiential knowledge” of God. If we’re not careful, we can be “experts” on God who have no radical relationship with him – no transforming “assent” to his Invisible, Infinite person.

  • Do you talk more about God than with him?
  • Is your experience of God “secondhand?”
  • What are you doing to “develop a rich interior life of union with God?”

Abba, protect me, and all of us who love you, from settling for less than you have for us.

For More: New Seeds 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: Hitting Bottom, Engulfed in Darkness (Barbara Brown Taylor, Brennan Manning and Richard Rohr)

Posted on by under Desolation's Gift, Downward Mobility, Embracing Losses and Limits, Loving Union with God, Spiritual Formation

“I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again….” Barbara Brown Taylor

“When we have hit bottom and are emptied of all we thought important to us, then we truly pray, truly become humble and detached, and live in the bright darkness of faith. In the midst of the emptying we know that God has not deserted us. He has merely removed the obstacles keeping us from a deeper union with Him. Actually we are closer to God than ever before, although we are deprived of the consolations that we once associated with our spirituality. What we thought was communion with Him was really a hindrance to that communion. …The theology of the dark night is simplicity itself. God strips us of natural delights and spiritual consolations in order to enter more fully into our hearts.” Brennan Manning

“The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines.” Richard Rohr

“…God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.” Hebrews 12:10

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • We might think we want a “deeper union with God” until we learn what God does to “remove obstacles” that hinder that. He may empty us of “all we thought important”, and leave us feeling deserted and deprived of pleasures we depend on. Our usual consolation in God’s presence and gifts may evaporate. Is your desire for deeper union with God greater than your desire to escape this painful “path of transformation?”
  • Imagine how confusing and unpleasant this can be, especially for someone who is unaware of this necessity. Are you aware of the likelihood that such an experience is in your future? If you minister to others, are you warning them?
  • We have probably learned and perhaps teach others that learning “doctrines” is the key to spiritual formation. Is this your approach? Can you see why this approach is not enough in itself? If so, what are the implications for you? For your ministry?

Abba, help me to want you more than the other things that compete for your place. Sustain me in the journey to deeper union with you.

For More: The Signature of Jesus by Brennan Manning
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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.”