"A Sacrament of Thanksgiving" by Howard Thurman

TODAY, I Make my Sacrament of Thanksgiving.

I begin with the simple things of my days:
Fresh air to breathe,
Cool water to drink,
The taste of food,
The protection of houses and clothes,
The comforts of home.
For these, I make an act of Thanksgiving this day!


I bring to mind all the warmth of humankind that I have known;
My mother's arm,
The strength of my father,
The playmates of my childhood,
The wonderful stories brought to me from the lives of many who
talked the days gone by when fairies and giants and
all kinds of magic held sway:
The tears I have shed, the tears I have seen;
The excitement of laughter and the twinkle in the eye with its
reminder that life is good.
For all these I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.


I finger one by one the messages of hope that awaited me
at the crossroads:
The smile of approval form those who held in their hands
the reins of my security;
The tightening of the grip in a single handshake when I feared
the step before me in the darkness;
The whisper in my heart when the temptation was fiercest and
the claims of appetite were not to be denied;
The crucial word said, the simple sentence from an open page
when my decision hung in the balance.
For all these I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.


I pass before me the mainsprings of my heritage:
The fruits of the labors of countless generations who lived before me,
without whom my own life would have no meaning;
The seers who saw visions and dreamed dreams;
The prophets who sensed a truth greater than the mind could grasp
and whose words could only find fulfillment in the years which
they would never see;
The workers who sweat has watered the trees, the leaves of which
are for the healing of the nations;
The pilgrims who set their sails for lands beyond all horizons,
whose courage made paths into new worlds and far-off places;
The saviors whose blood was shed a recklessness that only a dream
could inspire and God could command.
For all this I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.


I linger over the meaning of my own life and the commitment
to which I give the loyalty of my heart and mind:
The little purposes in which I have shared with my loves,
my desires, my gifts;
The restlessness which bottoms all I do with its stark insistence that
I have never done my best,
I have never dated to reach for the highest;
The big hope that never quite deserts me, that I and my kind
will study war no more, that love and tenderness and
all the inner graces of Almighty affection will cover the life of
their children of God as the waters cover the sea.


All these and more than mind can think and heart can feel,
I make as my sacrament of Thanksgiving to Thee,
O Father, in humbleness of mind and simplicity of heart.

Constantly Open to God

In his most recent book, Opening to God, author David Benner begins his introduction with these insightful and challenging words:

"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. Such a life would itself be prayer...prayer is not simply words that we offer when we speak to Got but an opening of our self to God."

I am thinking that this is what the Apostle Paul meant by praying unceasingly. It's not a matter of shutting my eyes and bowing my head. It's more a matter of this openness that David Benner describes. To be honest, I am truly drawn to this type of experience. But, I also realize that I go through my day rather mindlessly and "out of tune." In other words, not attuned to the loving presence of God. Our culture is also one in which we are easily distracted. Facebook, 24/7 news, constantly wired and checking emails and texts. All of this keeps us mentally occupied and distracted.

I realize that a growing edge in my life is to value the spiritual reality enough to be open to God's loving presence in the world. It's not that God isnt present. I'ts more that I'm not paying attention and maybe even looking in the wrong places. I can pay attention by:

• Pausing throughout the day for brief periods and simply sitting in silence.
• Reading prayers or Scripture and soaking in them
• Taking a walk and enjoying the beauty of the day
• Listening to my own feelings, emotions, responses to life in the moment

You might have your own list. Trust that God is wanting to communicate with you in this moment. Be open. I know I'm trying to be.

Procrastination - A Spiritual Issue

Most of us, including me, would label "procrastination" as a time management issue. And it is - but not always. Certainly there are things I put off doing because I just don't have the time to do them. But, for the most part, there are certain things I put off doing because there is some measure of unpleasantness surrounding it. And, if I am truly honest with myself, I put off doing certain things because of my fear of failure. I have come to understand that a root issue of procrastination is that of fearing failure.

If I feel called to engage in some type of ministry or feel led to initiate some type of endeavor often my first thought is, "Will it succeed?" or "Will I fail and fall flat on my face?" With those thoughts in my head, I tend to back off and not risk. With that in mind, I keep putting off what I need to be about because I don't want to experience the hard stuff of failure. But who has not experience failure in their life. And, does failure ever have the last word? I know that failure is not a deal breaker but somehow the thought of failing can paralyze me and so I procrastinate.

The consequences of procrastination are not so great. If I am leading a team of people or a group of people then they being to lose their confidence in me. If I am pastoring then some significant opportunities might slip away because I didnt act in a timely manner. Even my spiritual growth is stunted because I am not out there living on a growing edge and am choosing to play it safe. what I find to be true, then, is that a significant growing edge in my life is to move beyond procrastination and move toward living life.

This was reinforced to me recently as I was reading a reprint of a Brennan Manning book. His recently re-published book Souvenirs of Solitude has this to say about procrastination:

"Procrastination is perhaps the worst, the most damaging failure of all. We who believe in Jesus, who hope in vindication, who proclaim the love of the heavenly Father waste our time trying to avoid the things taht are most important because we're afraid we are going to fail in them. How much faith, how much hope, how much love does the perpetual procrastinator really have?"

Manning then goes on to offer this spiritual challenge:

"In the final analysis, the real challenge of Christian growth is personal responsibility. The Spirit of Jesus calls out a second time. Are you going to take charge of your life today? Are you going to be responsible for what you do?"

I once read that a good way to define "responsible" is to think of it as two words, "response-able". In other words, we all have the capacity and the ability to respond. The question is, am I simply reacting to life or responding to life? A reactive heart is a procrastinating heart but a responsive heart is an alive heart. I want to be alive. I want to live responsively. That's my growing edge.

God Loves Us In Our Nothingness

"Perhaps one of the things that most undermine the development of our intimate relationship with God is our inability to realize and accept the fact that God does really want an intimate relationship with us, that we are really important to him. He made us for no other reason than to enjoy us and to have us enjoy him. He had an absolute fullness of happiness and he wanted to share it, so he made us. Such absolute gratuity is difficult for us to comprehend. Our whole training and the attitudes that prevail in today's world reinforces the conviction that one has to merit love, that everything we get has to be paid for. Not so with God. Nothingness cannot merit until it is gratuitously given something to serve as a basis of activity and possible merit."

"Centering Prayer" by Basil Pennington

In Celebration of International Peace Day

In celebration of International Peace Day, I offer the following quote from George Fox, founder and visionary of the Quaker movement.

"We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fighting with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretense whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world. The spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight any war against any person with outward weapons, neither for the commonwealth of Christ, nor for the commonwealth's of this world."

"Answering the Great Deception" by Howard Thurman

Howard Thurman is one of my absolute favorite writers. This piece by him is a great encouragement to keep the hope and faith even in times of despair and disillusionment. The great deception is that there is no hope. Let us keep the faith!

During these turbulent times we must
remind ourselves repeatedly
that life goes on.
This we are apt to forget.
The wisdom of life transcends our wisdoms;
the purpose of life outlasts our purposes;
the process of life cushions our processes.
The mass attack of disillusion and despair,
distilled out of the collapse of hope,
has so invaded our thoughts that what we know
to be true and valid
seems unreal and ephemeral.
There seems to be little energy left for aught but futility.

This is the great deception.By it whole peoples have gone down to oblivion
without the will to affirm the great and permanent strength
of the clean and the commonplace. Let us not be deceived.
It is just as important as ever to attend to the little graces
by which the dignity of our lives is maintained and sustained.

Birds still sing;
the stars continue to cast their gentle gleamover the desolation of the battlefields,
and the heart is still inspired by the kind word
and the gracious deed….

To drink in the beauty that is within reach,
to clothe one’s life with simple deeds of kindness,
to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement
of the spirit of God in the quietness of the human heart
and in the workings of the human mind—this is as always the ultimate answer to the great deception.

"Is My Pain Transmitted or Transformed?" by Richard Rohr

Is your religion helping you to transform your pain? If it does not, it is junk religion. We all have pain—it’s the human situation, we all carry it in a big black bag behind us and it gets heavier as we get older: by betrayals, rejections, disappointments, and wounds that are inflicted along the way.

If we do not find some way to transform our pain, I can tell you with 100% certitude we will transmit it to those around us. We will create tension, negativity, suspicion, and fear wherever we go. Both Jesus and Buddha made it very clear to their followers that “life is suffering.” You cannot avoid it. It is no surprise that the central Christian logo became a naked, bleeding, suffering man. At the end of life, and probably early in life, too, the question is, “What do I do with this disappointment, with this absurdity, with this sadness?” Whoever teaches you how to transform your own suffering into compassion is a true spiritual authority. Whoever teaches you to project your doubt and fear onto Jews, Moslems, your family, heretics, gays, sinners, and foreigners, or even to turn it against yourself (guilt and shame) has no spiritual authority. Yet these very people have often preached from authoritative pulpits.

Church Membership - Substitute Spirituality or Spiritual Transformation?

One of my favorite writers on the spiritual life is Richard Rohr. He writes so well on the contemplative live and it's interaction with our daily living. Here, he has some great thoughts on church membership. I have been giving "church membership" alot of thought lately mainly because I believe it's a system that perpetuates spiritual immaturity when, in reality, it should promote spiritual maturity. Here are some thoughts from Rorh on church membership.

Historically, religion has more often been a belonging system or a belief system,than an actual system of transformation. When belonging and believing is yourprimary concern, you do not really need healing or growth, or even basic spiritualcuriosity. All your homework is done for you and handed to you. If you let thegroup substitute for your own inner life or your own prayer journey, all you need todo is attend. Church for several centuries now has largely been a matter ofattendance at a service, not an observably different lifestyle. Membership requirements predominated, not the “change your life” message that Jesus so clearlypreached.

Membership questions become an endless argument about who is in and who is out, whois right and who is wrong? Who is worthy of our God and who is not? Thisappeals very much to our ego, and its need to feel worthy, to feel superior, to be apart of a group that defines itself by exclusion. The Country Club instinct, youmight say. That is most of religious history. The group’s rightness or superioritybecomes a convenient substitute for knowing anything to be true for oneself. Wheredid Jesus recommend this pattern? It has left Christian countries not appreciablydifferent than other countries, in fact, sometimes worse. The two World Warsemerged within and between Christian countries. We can do so much better.

Pay Attention to Beauty and Goodness...Or Walking Right Past It

The following is a great story used by Rob Bell in a recent sermon. It illustrates perfectly that experience we might have when we are so caught up in other things that we walk right past beauty and goodness - in other words, we are walking right past God. Read on and let truth sink in.

Washington D.C. Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately 2000 people went through the station, most of them to work. After 3 minutes a middle-aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule. After 4 minutes the violinist received his first dollar – a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk. After 6 minutes a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him , then looked at his watch and started to walk again. After 10 minutes a three year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly. After 45 minutes the musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

After 1 hour he finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces of ever written, with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

We often walk right past the "free concert" we are given everyday in our God-soaked, God-drenched world. More words from Rob Bell to consider:

“Do you and I walk on holy ground all the time, but we are moving so fact and returning so many calls and writing so many emails and having such long lists to get done that we miss it?” (Rob Bell)

Autobiography in Five Short Chapter by Portia Nelson

1) I walk down the street.There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.I fall in.I am lost . . . I am hopeless.It isn't my fault.It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.I pretend I don't see it.I fall in again.I can't believe I am in the same place.But, it isn't my fault.It still takes a long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.I see it is there.I still fall in . . . it's a habit.My eyes are openI know where I am.It is my fault.I get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street.There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.I walk around it.

5) I walk down another street.

The Idolatry of Complete Understanding

"The opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear. Faith implies risk. I will cast my life on this possibility that God is for me. I do not have any proof except my commitment. I do not have to claim complete understanding - that is idolatry. The faith view of reality is frightening in its openness, and so institutions that are always trying to control reality with dictums and and laws and creeds."
(Verna Dozier, The Dream of God )

For the longest time I understood "having faith" as "never having any doubts." It was almost as if one had to reach a certain level of spirituality before you could qualify as one that "had faith." So, for a long time I pretty much saw myself as one that was "faithless" or without faith - mainly because I tend to have questions and I have my doubts.

But in my spiritual evolution I have some to see - and embrace - the reality that doubt is not the opposite of faith. In fact, I pretty much feel that it takes alot of faith to have doubts! Doubts have been my entry port into a deeper faith. It's not always easy or fun. And, sometimes it can make me downright irritable. But I have tried to be patient with my doubts and my questions because they have often led to deeper growth.

In the above quote, it's challenging - and helpful - to be reminded that complete understanding is akin to idolatry. So, if I don't understand everything there is to be understood, that is okay. To say that I completely understand and "get it" puts me in the position of being in control and that is the seedbed of idolatry. To be "in control" is the goal of all of us but it's not God's way for us. God is not about us being "in control" as being dependent upon God for all we are and well we can be. Only when I am completely dependent upon God and living into that benevolent unknown do I truly know what it means to live in faith - to cast my life on the possibility that God is for me.

"The Gospel in a Pluralist Society" by Leslie Newbigin

"Hopeful action means having something to which one can confidently look forward. It means having a horizon. As I said earlier, apart from what has been done in the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we are shut up to only two possibilities. One possible horizon for our action is a vision for the future of the human race, a future in which we shall have no part. The other possible horizon is a personal future for me beyond death. From that future the world in which I now seek to serve God is absent. Its future is not part of my future. The one possibility gives meaning to my participation in the public life of neighborhood, nation, and world at the cost of marginalizing the human person. The other provides meaning for the individual human person at the cost of marginalizing our shared public life. What is made possible through the gospel is a life looking toward a horizon which is different from either of these. That horizon is defined in the words "He shall come again." For a Christian the horizon for all action is this. It is advent rather than future. He is coming to meet us, and whatever we do -- whether it is our most private prayers or our most public political action -- is simply offered to him for whatever place it may have in his blessed kingdom. Here is the clue to meaningful action in a meaningful history: it is the translation into action of the prayer: 'Your kingdom come, your will be done, as in heaven so on earth' "

"Jesus As Our Disequilibrium" by Alan Hirsch

Here is a good read by blogger and author Alan Hirsch. He talks about how Jesus came to disturb the status quo...not bless it.

"Why do we need to constantly reboot back to Jesus? It seems to me that the problem is that his people have a nasty habit of pushing Jesus out of his own community. Of displacing him. Think this is wrong-headed? Well, even in the NT itself we have a scene of Jesus knocking at the door of the church asking to be let in (yes, Rev.3 is not about personal evangelism after all.) Question: What is he doing outside his church when he is meant to be Lord of the church?! It seems that it didn’t take long for the church to remove Jesus from his rightful place in his community.

But why do we do this when all our confessions call him ‘Lord?’ Well I think it is because Jesus is always very difficult to deal with, and religious-minded people really do struggle with his form of ‘religion.’ Actually what Jesus taught cannot properly be called religion at all, in fact Ellul rightly calls it ‘anti-religion’ precisely because it undoes all religion. It effectively dissoves any need for a complex mediating institution with all its priestly/churchly paraphrenalia, and opens up the God-relation to all who will repond direclty to its call. That’s why the religious folk hated him. He de-legitimizes everything they stand for (priesthood and institution) and opens it up to the people. they must take him out.

Here’s what I think: Christianity minus Jesus equalls religion. And this happens in more churches than we are given to believe. We marginalise Jesus all the time and in so many subtle ways. And we do this because dealing directly with Jesus (or God for that matter) is always a disturbing thing to a sin-wracked people who would prefer a stable, more controllable, religion. Like all living systems, churches seek equilibrium. We want to settle down. We want to bolt down the Revelation and make God understandable, accesable, and therefore more controllable–a ‘God-on-tap.’ Sociologists call this ‘the routinization of charisma’ (google that!) and it is written through the structures of all religions including our own.

But Jesus disturbs our equilbrium. He won’t be controlled. He won’t be handled only by priests and professional religionists. He won’t be domesticated. He is Lord! Yes, Jesus is our disequalibrium. And the way back to an authentic Christianity is simply to put Jesus back into the equation. Christianity plus Jesus equals World Transformation."

"Softening Toward Liberation" by Fr. Alfred Delp, SJ

"When a person's heart softens and loses its numbness he actually brings about his own liberation. Like all surrender that is not prompted by creative assent this can be a painful business. But it is restorative and a step toward freedom---the torrent at last finds an outlet to its own ocean. The overcoming of icy isolation, of lack of love and self-sufficiency---that is the task of the Holy Ghost in us."

Happiness

Today's edition of USA Today had an article in it on how to be happy during not-so-good times. It really was an article that raised the issue of how does happiness occur and where does it come from...and is it something we can actually pursue or are people simply predisposed to being happy. One of the points the article made is that wealth can be found in ways other the money. Wealth is not simply defined by our bottom line or our income. Wealth also has to do with our social network, relationships, and fulfilling our sense of purpose in life. If we have that kind of "wealth", we can also experience a sense of happiness.

One of the points in the article is that experiencing simplicity can also be a source of happiness...or planting seeds of happiness. Simplifying our lives causes us to refocus and not put so much emphasis on stuff or things...or what we don't have. Simplicity invites us to think about what is truly important. Along with simplicity the article said that focusing on gratitude and also increase happiness. It told of some folks who keep "gratitude journal" in which they intentionally take a look at their life and write about what they are grateful for. It tends to reframe their life in such a way that they realize they might have more then they thought they did. One person put it this way, "I think what the gratitude journal does is it shows me I actually have some good stuff in my life, I feel at peace. I feel happy because of that."

Happiness is always in intriguing topic for me. I think it's important for people to be happy...and I like experiencing happiness...but it is such a bad thing when you aren't happy? In other words, have we created too much pressure on people to feel as if they should be happy all the time and when they aren't, they feel something is either wrong with them or wrong with their life?

Also, have we made happiness too circumstantial. In other words, too dependent on our circumstances - which can change as quickly as the weather. What happens when we are going through a not-so-good season in our life and happiness is hard to come by? Do we change our disposition? Change our circumstances? Or both?

Maybe, in some ways, we as Americans have been somewhat spoiled...and that has also spoiled our spirituality. We have turned happiness into a religion...even an idol. We have felt that happiness is something we are entitled too...and it has been somewhat easy for us to "be happy" in the last few years when the economy was doing well. Now that the economy has gone flat so has our happiness. The scary thing is considering how much our happiness is tied into ...and dependent upon...what we possess, own, have, and consume. Also, we try to find happiness in other people meeting our needs and fulfilling those empty places in our life. And that always seems to be a dead end street.

What do you think it means to be happy? What makes you happy? What does it mean for spiritual people to be happy? Write me with your ideas at scottwagoner62@yahoo.com or post your comment. I'm interested to know.

The Descending Way

The following was written by Gordon Cosby. Any chance I get to read something by Gordon Cosby I do. For me, he lives and describes what I believe it is to be a Kingdom person within a Kingdom community.

"In the Gospel it is quite obvious that Jesus chose the descending way. He chose it not once but over and over again. At each critical moment he deliberately sought the way downward. Even though he was without sin, Jesus began his public life by joining the ranks of sinners who were being baptized by John in the Jordan. If you were especially gifted, don’t you think you would have said to John, “I’m going to bypass this little arrangement. It’s all right for these other characters but, you know, I’ve got hold of this”? But Jesus said, “I want to join the others in this rite of baptism.” And even though he was full of divine power, he believed that changing stones into bread, seeking popularity, and being counted among the great ones of the earth were temptations. Again and again he opted for what is small and hidden and poor, and declined to wield influence.

In all this it becomes plain to us that God has willed to show love for the world by descending more and more deeply into human frailty. The more conscious Jesus becomes of the mission entrusted to him, the more he realizes that mission will make him poorer and poorer.
God is the descending God. The movement is down, down, down, until it finds the sickest, the most afflicted, the most helpless, the most alienated, the most cut off…. Being with the least is difficult enough, but even more difficult is that other step of becoming the least of the least. Our trouble is that we live in a debilitating dichotomy. We listen to this “weakness” stuff, this “servant” stuff, but we just do not believe that the way to God, the way to fulfillment, is the downward way, the way of descent.

We spend our best thinking and energies on the upward way and are distressed if we slip a bit and are not recognized or appreciated. And if sometimes through God’s help we manage a miracle, we hope the recipient will tell everybody. We do not tell the person not to tell. We want our reputation to be enhanced, we want to be known as the one who can perform miracles in Christ’s name.

We do not say that Jesus lived a great life but ended that life poorly. The crowning event of his life was the death that he died, the poverty, the leastness of those final hours. The death is the glory…. This expression of total poverty—the dying on the cross—was the total descent and thus the height of the glory. This life, when it reaches the depths, as it reached those depths in Jesus, explodes into infinite newness. The only man ever resurrected was the one who hit the bottom and knew total poverty. He was the one who was resurrected, no one else. And so we have a new injection into the life stream of humanity—a totally new enhancement of the common good.
The ascending way never explodes into newness. We hold on to certain names, remember and sometimes envy their accomplishments and write much of our history around those names. We don’t write history about the poor, the real people…. Suppose the only God that exists is the descending God. Suppose the only way to be reconciled to God is to be reconciled with the least, who are at the bottom. If God is going down and we are going up, it is obvious that we are going in different directions. And we will not know him. We will be evading God and missing the whole purpose of our existence."

N. Gordon Cosby is co-founder of The Church of the Saviour and served as its minister for 62 years. This piece is an excerpt from a talk about servant leadership in 1989 that was published in a collection of sermons called By Grace Transformed: Christianity for a New Millennium, available from the Potter’s House.

Life As A Blur - The Spiritual Practice of Noticing

I sometimes peruse the books on my shelves and pull down some personal favorites. I then look through them to see what I underlined. I am an underliner when it comes to reading. When I find something that speaks to me...or corrects me...I underline it. It helps me in some way to retain it. And then when I go back to the book I can pick out what spoke to me.

One of these books is Spotting the Sacred by Bruce Main. Bruce directs an inner city ministry so his words carry some weight as he reflects on the pace of his life and how it affects him spiritually:

"I wonder if you can relate to my dilemma: life has become somewhat of a blur. Not that I am complaining. My life is full - family, friends, a job. But events and happenings seem to occur so rapidly that I have little time to ponder their significance and their meaning for my life. Information comes in torrents, not trickles. It is hard to know what to process, what to digest, and what - if anything - can add spiritual value to my life. I think I am becoming a little numb, especially when bombarded by all the bad news in the media. Am I missing something? If I take the time to scratch beneath the surface of the bad news or to reflect more deeply on the events of my life, will I have an opportunity to discover something more life-giving and spirituall enriching? If I really take the time to notice what is going on around me, will I find opportunities to discover a glimpse of God's presence?"

A little later, Bruce Main adds:

"More often than not in rushing blindly through the appointments, meetings, and encounters with other people, we miss opportunities to see and experience the presence of God in the ordinary aspects of our lives. We become content just skimming through life without ever pausing to consider that the events of our daily lives may have deeper dimensions - a truly spiritual quality."

I can be a skimmer. I know that to be true of myself but it's not something I am proud of. In th process of my skimming I fail to truly notice the wonder around me or even the presence of God around me. We often find ourselves empty and lacking fulfillment. Maybe it's because we skim so much of life. Life has a depth and a richness about it that is hidden away in the ordinary but it doesnt just jump out at us and demand we look at it. It takes noticing and paying attention. With all the spiritual practices I could be doing, taking time to notice and pay attention may be what ultimately saves my soul in the end.

Happiness in Any Circumstance - by Alfred Delp. SJ

"It does happen, even under these circumstances, that every now and then my whole being is flooded with pulsating life and my heart can scarcely contain the delirious joy there is in it. Suddenly, without any cause that I can perceive, without knowing why or by what right, my spirits soar again and there is not a doubt in my mind that all the promises hold good.... Outwardly nothing is changed. The hopelessness of the situation remains only too obvious; yet one can face it undismayed. One is content to leave everything in God's hands. And that is the whole point. Happiness in this life is inextricably mixed with God. Fellow creatures can be the means of giving us much pleasure and of creating conditions which are comfortable and delightful, but the success of this depends upon the extent to which the recipient is capable of recognizing the good and accepting it. And even this capacity is dependent on our relationship with God."

Source: Prison Writings: Meditations

Your One Wild and Precious Life

Yesterday in my message I ended with a poem by Mary Oliver. Her last two lines are the most recognizable but here is the whole poem:

Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself out of the grass
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, hot to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

What a penetrating question to ask halfway through one's life...or even near the end..."Tell me, what else should I have done?" In the poem she pays attention to the grasshopper and all that is around her but how much does she pay attention to her life? How much do we pay attention to our lives? To our dreams, aspirations, passions, and creative callings?

How do you answer those two last lines?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Called First to Belong to Christ

“We are not called primarily to create new structures for the church in this age; we are not called primarily to a program of service, or to dream dreams or have visions. We are called first of all to belong to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and to keep our lives warmed at the hearth of His life. it is there the fire wil be lit which will create new structures and programs of service that will draw others into the circle to dream dreams and have visions.
“To understand this is to be thrown back upon those disciplines that are the only known gateways to the grace of God; for how do we fulfill the command to love, except that we learn it of God, and how do we learn it of God, except that we pray, and live under His word and percieve His world?”
(E. O’Connor, Call to Commitment (1963) 92.)