Category Archives: Mindfulness

Daily Riches: Our Deep Need for Approval (Anthony de Mello and Brennan Manning) *

Posted on by under applause, approval addiction, Being the Beloved, Mindfulness

“Look at your life and see how you have filled its emptiness with people. As a result they have a stranglehold on you. See how they control your behavior by their approval and disapproval. They hold the power to ease your loneliness with their company, to send your spirits soaring with their praise, to bring you down to the depths with their criticism and rejection. Take a look at yourself spending almost every waking minute of your day placating and pleasing people, whether they are living or dead. You live by their norms, conform to their standards, seek their company, desire their love, dread their ridicule, long for their applause, meekly submit to the guilt they lay upon you; you are terrified to go against the fashion in the way you dress or speak or act or even think.” Anthony de Mello

“When we freely assent to the mystery of our belovedness and accept our core identity as Abba’s child, we slowly gain autonomy from controlling relationships. We become inner-directed rather than outer-determined. The fleeting flashes of pleasure or pain caused by the affirmation or deprivation of others will never entirely disappear, but their power to induce self-betrayal will be diminished.”  Brennan Manning

“Let all that I am wait quietly before God,
   for my hope is in him.
 He alone is my rock and my salvation,
  my fortress where I will not be shaken.
 My victory and honor come from God alone.”
 Psalm 62:5-7a

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you aware of how much control over your life you’re giving away? Have you lost yourself somewhere in the process?
  • Is your core identity that of “Abba’s child?” If not, what needs to change?
  • Are you willing to be true to yourself and learn to resist the urge to “betray” yourself when you feel pressure from others?

Abba, help me to slowly gain autonomy from the controlling relationships in my life as I look for approval from you alone.

__________

For More: The Way to Love by Anthony de Mello

_________________________________________________

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: 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.

__________

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

_________________________________________________

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: Awareness and Loving Listening (Anthony De Mello)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Loving Listening, Loving Well, Mindfulness

“When I’m listening to you, it’s infinitely more important for me to listen to me than to listen to you. Of course, it’s important to listen to you, but it’s more important that I listen to me. Otherwise I won’t be hearing you. Or I’ll be distorting everything you say. I’ll be coming at you from my own conditioning. I’ll be reacting to you in all kinds of ways from my insecurities, from my need to manipulate you, from my desire to succeed, from irritations and feelings that I might not be aware of. So it’s frightfully important that I listen to me when I’m listening to you.” Anthony De Mello

“Then [Joseph] had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.’ When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, ‘What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?’ His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.” Genesis 37:9-11

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • It’s our “conditioning … insecurities … need to manipulate … desire to succeed … [and] irritations and feelings” that make it so difficult for us to truly listen – to listen lovingly. Imagine how hard it must have been for Joseph’s family to hear about his dream.
  • Are you aware of the “triggers” that spoil your listening? How defended you are? controlling? impatient? unteachable? What would you add to this list?
  • This is an area where training will serve us better than merely trying. How can you train to “listen to you” while you “listen to me?” Can you practice watching your conversations from outside? Can you bring an “inner stability” (Nouwen) to conversations, so that it’s not “all about you?”

Abba, teach me to lovingly listen to others by teaching me first to know and hear myself.

__________

For More: Awareness by Anthony De Mello

_________________________________________________

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: 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)

__________

For More: Collected Poems by Jane Kenyon

_________________________________________________

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)

Daily Riches: Finding God’s “Real Presence” Everywhere (Ruth Haley Barton and Richard Rohr) *

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

“Discernment is first of all a habit, a way of seeing that eventually permeates our whole life. It is the journey from spiritual blindness (not seeing God anywhere or seeing him only where we expect to see him) to spiritual sight (finding God everywhere especially where we least expect it.)”  Ruth Haley Barton

“Most of Jesus’ contemporaries missed the ‘Real Presence’ that was right in their midst, and most of them were religiously observant people ….They were looking for religion, and he was just a human being.” Richard Rohr

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

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you agree that we can find God everywhere? (Don’t forget that old dusty doctrine of the “omnipresence” or “ubiquity” of God – that he is “everywhere present.” Don’t forget how the creation speaks of him (Psalm 19:1-4), how Jesus appears in the poor and marginalized, and how every person bears God’s image.)
  • Which of Barton’s three categories describe you – unaware of God, looking for him in expected places, or expecting him everywhere? Do you want to “expect him everywhere?”
  •  Imagine all the people who saw and listened to Jesus when he walked the earth – God in their very midst – who “didn’t recognize him” and even “rejected him.” How often do we fail to recognize him in our day? What discipline can you begin to practice today to help you be more aware of the presence of God all around you?

Abba, help me to really “stop, look and listen” as I go through my day. Teach me to be more present to myself, to others and to you.

__________

For More: Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation by Ruth Haley Barton

_________________________________________________

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: Present to Reality, Present to God (Pema Chödrön and Gerald May) *

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

“We don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. but what we find … is that nothing ever goes way until it has taught us what we need to know. if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. it just keeps returning with new names, forms, manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves.”  Pema Chödrön

“…we are blinded by our attachments, we are so preoccupied–our attention is so kidnapped by our compulsions–that we tune out the background of God’s love.  …We want to notice divine love, but we ignore it like we ignore our own breathing, in favor of the things that have captured us.” Gerald May

“The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.’ But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship … and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.”  Jonah 1:1-3

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • What is there in your present reality that you wish “would go away fast?” Are you attempting to run from it like Jonah did?
  • Are you waiting for some unpleasant, persistent reality in your life to “go away”, while God is waiting for you to learn from it “what you need to know?”
  • Can you embrace the anxiety and submit to the waiting, the frustration – even the pain, as God’s gift to you?
  • Could you have become so desensitized to God’s steady, always present love that you’re unaware of it?

Abba, I know you’re at work in my daily reality and that your love for me is active and constant, but I’m often impatient and oblivious. Teach me to be aware or what you’re doing in and for me, and all around me.

__________

For More: When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön

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Thanks for reading and sharing Daily Riches!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Stopping for the Bush that Burns (Walter Rauschenbusch) *

Posted on by under Awareness, Busyness, Mindfulness

“O God, we thank you for this universe, our great home; for its vastness and its riches, and for the manifoldness of the life which teems upon it and of which we are a part. …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 unseeing when even the thorn bush by the wayside is aflame with the glory of God.”  Walter Rauschenbusch

“Now Moses … led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”  Exodus 3:1-3

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Are you able to stay open to our world’s daily “joy and beauty” when your heart is “steeped in care?”  when it is “darkened by passion?”
  • Are you able to be unhurried enough, and present enough, so that if “the thorn bush by the wayside is aflame” you’ll stop to investigate?
  • What specific action can you take to be more mindful of what’s happening in you and around you as you move through your day today?

Abba, my heart’s cares and dark passions are constantly hindering me from hearing and seeing what you have for me. Please help me to work on being more present to you and to my world.

_________________________________________________

The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to provide you with 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: The Sacrament of the Present Moment (Edwina Gateley and Evelyn Underhill)

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

“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 present, 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, loyal love. Thank you that you hold me fast.

__________

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

_________________________________________________

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. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. Thanks!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: God Comes in our “Now” (Henri Nouwen)

Posted on by under Awareness, Mindfulness

“After having read these words [below], Jesus said, ‘This text is being fulfilled today even while you are listening.’ Suddenly, it becomes clear that the afflicted, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed are not people somewhere outside of the synagogue who, someday, will be liberated; they are the people who are listening. And it is in the listening that God becomes present and heals. … The Word of God is not a word to apply in our daily lives at some later date; it is a word to heal us through, and in, our listening here and now.” Henri Nouwen

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
for he has anointed me
to bring good news to the afflicted.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives,
sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord.”
Jesus, reading from Isaiah in the synagogue
Luke 4:18-19

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • How does God come to me as I listen to the word? Where do I discern the healing hand of God touching me through the word?
  • How are my sadness, my grief, and my mourning being transformed at this very moment?
  • Do I sense the fire of God’s love purifying my heart and giving me new life?

              (These questions are also from Henri Nouwen.)

Abba, I need you to transform my sadness and mourning, and purify my heart. I seek you, not for your saving and transforming work at some future date, in some other place, but for this moment in this place – right now.

_________________________________________________

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: Our Deep Need for Approval (Anthony de Mello and Brennan Manning)

Posted on by under applause, approval addiction, Being the Beloved, Mindfulness

“Look at your life and see how you have filled its emptiness with people. As a result they have a stranglehold on you. See how they control your behavior by their approval and disapproval. They hold the power to ease your loneliness with their company, to send your spirits soaring with their praise, to bring you down to the depths with their criticism and rejection. Take a look at yourself spending almost every waking minute of your day placating and pleasing people, whether they are living or dead. You live by their norms, conform to their standards, seek their company, desire their love, dread their ridicule, long for their applause, meekly submit to the guilt they lay upon you; you are terrified to go against the fashion in the way you dress or speak or act or even think.” Anthony de Mello

“When we freely assent to the mystery of our belovedness and accept our core identity as Abba’s child, we slowly gain autonomy from controlling relationships. We become inner-directed rather than outer-determined. The fleeting flashes of pleasure or pain caused by the affirmation or deprivation of others will never entirely disappear, but their power to induce self-betrayal will be diminished.”  Brennan Manning

“Let all that I am wait quietly before God,
   for my hope is in him.
 He alone is my rock and my salvation,
  my fortress where I will not be shaken.
 My victory and honor come from God alone.”
 Psalm 62:5-7a

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you aware of how much control over your life you’re giving away? Have you lost yourself somewhere in the process?
  • Is your core identity that of “Abba’s child?” If not, what needs to change?
  • Are you willing to be true to yourself and learn to resist the urge to “betray” yourself when you feel pressure from others?

Abba, help me to slowly gain autonomy from the controlling relationships in my life as I look for approval from you alone.

__________

For More: The Way to Love by Anthony deMello

_________________________________________________

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

Posted on by under Awareness, Busyness, Mindfulness, Social Justice

“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.
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 come to me according to your plan, not my demand – and no doubt in many fabulous, unlikely disguises. Graciously open my eyes Lord. Graciously open my heart.

__________

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

_________________________________________________

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: Awareness and Loving Listening (Anthony deMello)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Loving Listening, Mindfulness

“When I’m listening to you, it’s infinitely more important for me to listen to me than to listen to you. Of course, it’s important to listen to you, but it’s more important that I listen to me. Otherwise I won’t be hearing you. Or I’ll be distorting everything you say. I’ll be coming at you from my own conditioning. I’ll be reacting to you in all kinds of ways from my insecurities, from my need to manipulate you, from my desire to succeed, from irritations and feelings that I might not be aware of. So it’s frightfully important that I listen to me when I’m listening to you.” Anthony deMello

“Then [Joseph] had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.’ When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, ‘What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?’ His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.” Genesis 37:9-11

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • It’s our “conditioning … insecurities … need to manipulate … desire to succeed … [and] irritations and feelings” that make it so difficult for us to truly listen – to listen lovingly. Imagine how hard it must have been for Joseph’s family to hear about his dream.
  • Are you aware of the “triggers” that spoil your listening? How defended you are? controlling? impatient? unteachable? What would you add to this list?
  • This is an area where training will serve us better than merely trying. How can you train to “listen to you” while you “listen to me?” Can you practice watching your conversations from outside? Can you bring an “inner stability” (Nouwen) to conversations, so that it’s not “all about you?”

Abba, teach me to lovingly listen to others by teaching me first to know and hear myself.

__________

For More: Awareness by Anthony deMello

_________________________________________________

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: Mindfulness (Jane Kenyon and Alan Wilson Watts)

Posted on by under Mindfulness

“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 infintesimal 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

” … 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 right 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 and 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)

__________

For More: Collected Poems by Jane Kenyon

_________________________________________________

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: Waiting on God (Henri Nouwen)

Posted on by under Mindfulness, Waiting on God

“To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our imaginings. So, too, is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life, trusting that God molds us according to God’s love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.”  Henri Nouwen

“Hear my cry for help,
my King and my God,
for to you I pray.
In the morning, Lord,
you hear my voice;
in the morning
I lay my requests before you
and wait expectantly.”
Psalm 5:2,3

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Are you willing to try to resist your fears and allow God to “mold you according to his love?”
  • Nouwen uses the word “radical” to describe waiting on God in a world “preoccupied with control.” What are you attempting to control in your life that you can relinquish to God?
  • Take a moment to open your hands to God and pray, releasing control to him of whatever you may be grasping, and welcoming whatever it is he wants to give you in his love. Are you able to do that? How does it make you feel?

Abba, help me to succeed in “waiting patiently in expectation” (Simone Weil) rather than trying to control my life and those around me. Help me to trust you when I’m disillusioned, anxious, confused, angry, frustrated, in a hurry, or when I feel like you’re not paying attention. Help me to embrace the anxiety that is a part of waiting well.

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For More: “A Spirituality of Waiting” by Henri Nouwen (PDF)

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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: Mindfulness (Frederick Buechner)

Posted on by under Mindfulness

“Once [those who believe in God] have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man. If holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in this least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant’s child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too. And this means … [there is] no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart because it is just where he seems most helpless that he is most strong, and just where we least expect him that he comes most fully.”  Frederick Buechner

“… he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.”
Isaiah 53:3

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • The birth of Jesus was the “least auspicious of all events.” In other words, God was up to something big, and chose an approach destined to fail. But “where we least expect him … he comes most fully.” Where do you “least expect” God to come?
  • In weak people and inauspicious situations God is often “most strong.” Are you weak, even tragically flawed? Are you in a hopeless situation? Doesn’t that actually make your life more likely as a staging ground for some work of God? Can you think about your life in that way?

Abba, I want to learn to expect you not only there but “here”, not only then, but “now”, not only for them, but “for me.” I admit I’m an unlikely candidate who seems likely to fail. Help me therefore all the more to look with expectation for your coming in my life.

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For More: Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons by Frederick Buechner

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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)