Looking Ahead

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Book of Hours, dusk, Entering the Silence, eyes, grace, hearts, holy expectation, joy, light, love, Peace, reflections, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, trial, truth

This morning I found a quote in Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours that I hope to remember as the day progresses. It is in his Wednesday reflections at dusk, so I thought that if I kept it in my heart and consciousness all day, maybe I could say the same as life unfolds and I arrive at evening.  It’s a new way to pay attention to the events of the day, a “holy expectation” perhaps – at least worth a try. Here is what he says:

Today, in a moment of trial, I rediscovered Jesus, or perhaps discovered him for the first time. I came closer than ever to fully realizing how true it is that our relations with Jesus are something utterly beyond the level of imagination and emotion. His eyes, which are the eyes of Truth, are fixed upon my heart. Where his glance falls, there is peace; for the light of His Face, which is the Truth, produces truth wherever it is found. There too is joy: and he says to those he loves, I will fix my eyes upon you. His eyes are always on us everywhere and in all times. No grace comes to us from heaven except He looks upon our hearts. (Entering the Silence) 

May our travels through this day be suffused with the joy of seeking Truth and recognizing it when it is found. Safe travels, everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

The Whole Truth

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Book of Hours, death, divine values, falsity, God's truth, hypocrisy, integrity, let go, lies, life, love, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, Tower of Babel

Today after reading about the tower of Babel I was reminded of the newly-coined phrase in our culture of “fake news” and turned for solace to Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours. In the Friday reflections, I found a worthy reminder for the day, actually a composite from two of Merton’s texts. I believe it is appropriate and is “enough said.”

No matter what happens, I feel myself more and more closely united with those who, everywhere, devote themselves to the glory of God’s truth, to the search for divine values hidden among the poor and outcast, to the love of that cultural heritage without which [man] cannot be healthy. The air of the world is foul with lies, hypocrisy, falsity, and life is short, death approaches. We must devote ourselves with generosity and integrity to the real values: there is no time for falsity and compromise. But on the other hand we do not have to be greatly successful or even well known. It is enough for our integrity to be known to God. What we do that is pure in His sight will avail for the liberty, the enlightenment, and the salvation of His children everywhere. (The Courage for Truth 188)

Let go of all that seems to suggest getting somewhere, being someone, having a name or a voice, following a policy and directing people in “my ways.” What matters is to love. (Learning to Love, 15)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be the Truth

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believe in the works, blasphemy, Book of Hours, enlightenment, generosity, glory of God's truth, integrity, Jesus, John, liberty, real values, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, united

In this morning’s gospel, when Jesus is in danger of being stoned for blasphemy (JN 10:31-42), he tells his accusers that they need not believe him but rather believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father. I heard echoes of the same theme in a Friday reading from Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours this morning which speaks of integrity and truth-telling as efficacious for the healing of the world. These two “words of God” taken together will suffice for this Lenten day’s reflection. Here is what Merton says to us:

No matter what happens, I feel myself more and more closely united with those who, everywhere, devote themselves to the glory of God’s truth, to the search for divine values hidden among the poor and the outcast, to the love of that cultural heritage without which man cannot be healthy. The air of the world is foul with lies, hypocrisy, falsity, and life is short, death approaches. We must devote ourselves with generosity and integrity to the real values: there is no time for falsity and compromise. But on the other hand we do not have to be greatly successful or even well-known. It is enough for our integrity to be known to God. What we do that is pure in His sight will avail for the liberty, the enlightenment, and the salvation of His children everywhere. (The Courage for Truth, p.188)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day By Day

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Book of Hours, Exodus, grace, Moses, scattered mind, stubborn, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

There are some days that I would rather have stayed in bed. Take today when I woke up to my phone alarm and kept putting in the wrong code until it gave me a message that said, “Phone disabled.” I had never seen that before! Then I realized that the wonderful spring weather of the last three days had disappeared as well; my window view and aching body told me it was likely to be a rainy day. And then there was the reading from Exodus where God’s wrath was about to be visited on the people Moses has led out of Egypt who had come depraved and stiff-necked (Hmm – like me?). They were certainly lucky that they had such a convincing and beloved champion as Moses who was able to convince God not to destroy the whole lot of them. (EX 32:7-14) For some reason all this made me want to turn to the wisdom of Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours where a quote from Thursday shook me out of my grumbling mood. I will try to remember it all day long.

My mind is scattered among things, not because of my work, but because I am not detached and I do not attend first of all to God. On the other hand, I do not attend to Him because I am so absorbed in all these objects and events. I have to wait on His grace. But how stubborn and slow my nature is. And how I keep confusing myself and complicating things for myself by useless twisting and turning. What I need most of all is the grace to really accept God as He gives Himself to me in every situation. (p. 148)

Fly Wrangler

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being critical, Book of Hours, conversation wrangler, Jan Phillips, negative, No Ordinary Time: The Rise of Spiritual Intelligence and Evolutionary Creativity, redirect energy, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

My friend, Jan Phillips, wrote a book (one of several) entitled No Ordinary Time: The Rise of Spiritual Intelligence and Evolutionary Creativity. It is described as “a Book of Hours for a Prophetic Age,” different from any traditional monastic Book of Hours but very powerful in calling readers to a deeper way of thinking and being. Thinking of Jan herself this morning, I picked up the book which opened without my choosing to what seemed a strange narrative but turned out to be very wise advice. I share it here as I send out a blessing of gratitude for Jan and all the light she continues to shed in the world.

I once noticed in the credits to a film that someone had a job called “fly wrangler.” There was a scene where a body had been dead a long time and there were hundreds of flies swarming around. The fly wrangler had to see to it that those flies behaved well and did their part. As you begin to pay attention to your thoughts and words, you’re going to start noticing others’ speaking as well, and you can take on the role of “conversation wrangler.”

If you’re with someone or a group of people who are being critical or negative, you can wrangle that conversation right around to something positive. Think of it as a creative challenge. How can you kindly, compassionately redirect the energy toward the light? How can you reframe the issue so people can focus on what they want, instead of what they don’t want?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Giving Thanks

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blessings, Book of Hours, glory of God, light, nothingness, Thanksgiving, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

I have many reasons for personally giving thanks on this holiday when people in the USA pause to recall their blessings. I turned to Merton’s Book of Hours for a word that would be appropriate for today in a more expansive way than the personal and serendipitously opened to the Thursday “psalm” (without any manipulation to choose it) that has become one of my favorite quotes of all time. I have shared it here before, I am sure, but repeat it as a reminder of who we are in God’s sight and a prayer for us to recognize each other in the same way.

In the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere. (Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 158)

Thanksgiving Blessings to all!

Wake Up Call

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be content, body of Christ, Book of Hours, deepening, glory, heart, hope, messages, the present, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, wisdom

I had need of a little Merton this morning to get me going for the day. I know that there is always some hidden pearl of wisdom hidden in the ordinariness of any moment but I have just come from such richness in wisdom gatherings in New Hampshire and in Syracuse, New York that I wasn’t sure the events of today could measure up. Silly me! I opened Merton’s Book of Hours and found right in front of me not one but two worthy messages. I didn’t even need to search or turn a page!

1. God cannot be found by weighing the present against the future or the past, but only in sinking into the heart of the present as it is.
2. Our glory and our hope – We are the Body of Christ. Christ loves us and espouses us as His own flesh. Isn’t that enough for us? But we do not really believe it. No! Be content, be content. We are the Body of Christ. We have found Him, He has found us. We are in Him, He is in us. There is nothing further to look for, except for the deepening of this life we already possess. Be content.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All of Creation Sings!

Tags

Book of Hours, creation, diversity, holiness, inscape, nature, New Seeds of Contemplation, saints, sanctity, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, wonder of creation

Today is my last day in California. The work of our committee is complete for now; today I will be at the beach with my brother and sister-in-law – a rare blessing! Tomorrow I will repeat my airy trek across the country, but in reverse, and I presume I will again marvel at God’s grandeur. Everywhere I look, here or from the plane or upon my return to New York State I am aware of the diversity and wonder of creation. As I opened my computer this morning there was an image of Pope Francis and an advertisement for his encyclical, On Care for Our Common Home, about the environment. All of the above prompts me to quote in its entirety a piece from Thomas Merton’s book, New Seeds of Contemplation, that just happens to appear as a Monday morning reflection in his Book of Hours.

The forms and individual characters of living and growing things, of inanimate beings, of animals and flowers and all nature, constitute their holiness in the sight of God. Their inscape is their sanctity. It is the imprint of His wisdom and His reality in them. The special clumsy beauty of this particular colt on this day in this field under these clouds is a holiness consecrated to God by His own creative wisdom and it declares the glory of God. The pale flowers of the dogwood outside this window are saints. The little yellow flowers that nobody notices on the edge of the road are saints looking up into the face of God. This leaf has its own texture and its own pattern of veins and its own holy shape, and the bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength. The lakes hidden among the hills are saints, and the sea too is a saint who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance. The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another of God’s saints. There is no other like him. He is alone in his own character; nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God in quite the same way. That is his sanctity. But what about you? What about me?

(I will not have an opportunity to post tomorrow but, God willing, will be back to it on Wednesday.)

Wisdom Seekers

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Book of Hours, God speaks to each of us, life, limits, longing, Rainer Maria Rilke, retreat, seriousness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Wisdom tradition fo Christianity

Today we are blessed by the presence of a group of people here at our center/home who have come to experience in a weekend a taste of what we have to offer of the Wisdom tradition of Christianity. I go in a few minutes to morning prayer at 7:00am where in silence we seek the God who calls us all. A page from Rilke’s Book of Hours fairly shouts an invitation to this brief encounter that will lead us into a day of exploration of spiritual practice. He writes the following message for us, I think, for today.

God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: “You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like flame and make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand.”