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The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Tag Archives: assessment

Who Are You Really?

03 Saturday Dec 2016

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A Deep Breath of Life, affirmation, Alan Cohen, assessment, being, doing, highests self, holy, humility, intention, magnificence, Peace, perfect, purpose, self-effacement, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, truth

aholyman

I had a conversation yesterday with a woman who has difficulty seeing herself as others see her, i.e. holy. We spent some time with the difference between “holy” and “perfect” and I was reminded of the definition of humility as truth rather than self-effacement. Tangentially, there is the relative importance of doing vs. being to consider in our assessment of our success as humans.

I smiled this morning when I read Alan Cohen’s thought for the day (A Deep Breath of Life) that ended with an intention and an affirmation – a perfect afterthought from yesterday. He wrote: Let me remember who I really am, that I may be at peace with myself and my purpose. And then (the part that actually made me chuckle): Today I choose to be my highest self and live my magnificence.

May it be so!

Looking Back and Forward

31 Thursday Dec 2015

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2016, assessment, deepening, global community, God's wonders, Helen Daly, New Year's, new year's resolutions, proclaim, psalm 96, sing out, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, understanding, Wisdom School

awisdombooktreeToday’s title for this blog post should surprise nobody. Today is, after all, the last day of the year, a day on which we regularly review the year just ending, perhaps with an eye toward things we want to remember and what we would like to forget. Making an honest assessment is not always the easiest activity of the year but is a good way to spend at least a little time before moving on to what we hope to accomplish or become in 2016.

The first lines of Psalm 96 became my impetus for reflection: Come, sing to God, O earth, sing out this song anew, and bless God’s holy name in praise, for day to day we are renewed, restored, refreshed again by glory’s light. Proclaim good news among the nations of the earth, tell all the peoples everywhere God’s work, God’s ways, the wonders that God does. (vs. 1-3) I can’t help but be amazed every day, not only by the number of people who have visited and read these blog posts (I have access to a statistics page) but also the places from which the visitors come. This year alone we’ve had 7,699 views (or more while I’ve been writing now!) by people from 77 countries all around the world! This is such a miracle to me and I am grateful for the privilege of this connection. I also feel responsible for this and all the activities that we offer at The Sophia Center for Spirituality in Binghamton and Endicott, New York, hoping that those who visit us (either in person or virtually through technology) are nourished in their spiritual life by their contact with us. I have met amazing people through this work as well as in our Wisdom Schools (see http://www.wisdomswork.com for explanation and information) and have grown immensely myself in these encounters.

My gratitude for the work I do now is in large part due to the generous grant from the estate of my dear friend, Helen Daly, who grasped the potential of the study of the Wisdom tradition of Christianity in which we had been engaged for seven years at the time of her death. My sense of responsibility to that gift now calls me to extend the opportunity to join the work we are doing to all who have benefited from it thus far. You may have noted the addition of a “Donate” button on this blog page. There is also now a donations page on our website, http://www.thesophiacenterforspirituality.org where you will find a more detailed explanation of our reasoning and our hopes for the coming year. If you have never visited our website, today might be a good day to see a more global (or in one way a more local) sense of who we are. All that we do and hope that people support harks back to those words of the psalm, for it is truly God’s work, God’s ways, the wonders that God does that is my purpose in writing.

May 2016 see a deepening of understanding for each of us so that God’s ways become more and more the ways of the world and may our appreciation of the wonders that God does guide us in all that we do and become in this new year.

Assessments

01 Friday Aug 2014

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assessment, career, Jesus, lawyer, Matthew, temple, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, truth

jesustempleOne of my daily practices is reading the obituaries in our local paper. This morning I found one about a man whose children I taught in high school in the 1970s. He was a small, seemingly nervous but very polite man, and was always happy to greet me over the years when I encountered him at his parish church where he was frequently involved in the liturgy. I held a great fondness for him and took him for a shopkeeper or a tradesman of some kind – one who would have treated every customer with kindness and generosity. I was surprised to learn from his obituary that he was a patent attorney, a rather distinguished one at that, whose demeanor did not fit my image of someone in that career for some reason. The issue was not one of intelligence or competency, but just the personality traits that are necessary for a lawyer’s life.

This morning’s gospel (MT 13: 54-58) has Jesus being scrutinized by the people from his “native place’ who were astonished at his wisdom as he taught in the synagogue. Their comments were quite derogatory (not just surprised as are mine). “Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?” they asked. “Is he not the carpenter’s son?…Are not his sisters all with us? Where did he get all this?” And they took offense at him.

These two examples set me to thinking how easily we assign people to boxes without really knowing them at all. My assessment was a positive one but totally off the mark. I don’t think it made any difference in the way I treated Mr. B, but I can’t be sure since, with a sister who had a successful career as a lawyer, I am in some ways pro-prejudiced (although not always) toward people in that profession. In the case of Jesus, the people in his hometown took Jesus for an arrogant man, going above his station to preach to them. They were quite put out with him so they couldn’t get the benefit of what he was saying. So once more we have a lesson in not judging at face value but rather digging deeper for the truth that lies at the heart of people and things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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