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Tag Archives: calendar

Where Wisdom Lives

14 Sunday Oct 2018

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balance, Benedictine, calendar, fulfillment, heart, intention, psalm 90, spirituality, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, time, time management, wisdom

abalanceThe beginning of a new week is always a good time to take a breath and see what lies ahead. That task presupposes a look at the calendar to be sure we have noted all the “goings-on” and the preparation necessary for each event. I’m reminded of that practice by the first line from this morning’s psalm that prays: Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart. (PS 90:12) The first clause of that sentence sounds like the necessity of knowing what day and date it is (something that escapes me sometimes lately) but the second clause adds a goal to the “numbering.” It implies good time management but also good choices about how we are spending the time that we have.

Benedictine spirituality runs on a time schedule that is based on a balanced day of activities and rest. A good exercise to illustrate this is to draw a circle and divide it into four equal quadrants entitled prayer alone, prayer together, work alone and work together – and then fill it in with everything you do by yourself and with other people. Rest/leisure is included as “work alone” and should not be ignored. It’s good, especially if one is just beginning to look for this balance, to draw two circles for the day labeled Start and End to check at the end of the day to see whether intention and fulfillment merge. I find it a good way to test procrastination tendencies as well as workaholism. And as the psalm seems to suggest, wisdom is found in the middle path.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Present Moment

12 Tuesday Jun 2018

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A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, calendar, mindfulness, present, present moment, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, time

acashinhandWhen thinking about the necessities of life lately, the first thing on my list is my calendar. I used to be able to keep track of a month’s activities so I would be where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to do, only checking my calendar rarely for exactitude. Granted, that was when I was teaching high school and living a relatively stable routine. Now my activities vary so much from day to day that I sometimes am not sure what the day will bring until I look at my calendar for a reminder and sometimes I’m looking just to see what day of the week today is! I use the excuse that my activities are much more varied these days and that there is lots more “stuff” crowding my brain. While this is true, I suppose it has something to do with the aging process as well. Today I’m considering this situation as a call to live in the present moment.

Alan Cohen has reminded me of the value of this kind of thinking in an anonymous quote for today from his book, A Deep Breath of Life. He writes: The past is a canceled check, the future is a promissory note and the present is cash in hand. So with my bankroll of 16 hours or so in my pocket before I go to sleep again, I hope to set forth mindfully and treat each moment of this sunny day as priceless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A New Calendar

26 Tuesday Dec 2017

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calendar, Jesus, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

acalendarWe have to be quite agile at this time of the year as we read the Scriptures, able to jog back and forth between the texts that chronicle events in the “infancy narratives” and those that speak of the “public life” of Jesus. Today, one day after we read stories of the shepherds and angels singing and adoring at the manger, we hear about St. Stephen, chosen by the apostles to serve the widows and orphans in the fast-growing community of Christ’s disciples. Two days from now we will be back in Matthew’s gospel hearing about all the babies that Herod ordered killed so he would be assured that Jesus, the newborn king, would not be around to usurp his title and power.

These juxtaposed texts seem to be a good example of how Scripture calls us to suspend our logical thinking about the events of our heritage in order to enter the realm of the “here and now” and the “not yet.” While we are actually able to tell the story of Jesus in a linear fashion, regardless of the non-linearity of the above examples, we have to hold all the pieces of his incarnation that can only be grasped by faith in order to get the whole picture, and, truth be told, it can never be fully understood from a human perspective. We need to catch deeper meanings from the actions and words of Jesus in the gospels, delving into the underlying messages with openness to mystery.

We could say that if Christmas is just a marking of the entrance of Jesus into time, an event 2,000 years distant from us, it is difficult to see the cataclysmic relevance that we give to the event. As we come to understand more and more deeply that our own “incarnation” is connected to the Christ event, however, it begins to make more sense. We talk about Christ being “born in us” at Christmas. As we develop the capacity to live more and more in the Spirit that Christ promised as remaining with us, the need for explanation is subsumed into a new reality where the only “calendar” is love.

This is not something that we grasp on the first try. It is a message for a lifetime: “the way, the truth and the life” that Jesus came to know about himself and which must be realized in us one day – one step – at a time. This is the renewal that Christmas offers us and the work of the vision starts again today.

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, Monday…

13 Monday Nov 2017

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active work, Book of Hours, calendar, collaborative effort, contemplative, cultural, Job, Peace, renewal, schedule, society, spiritual, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, virtue, work week

8:27AM EDT: As we come round again to the beginning of the traditional work week (if such a concept even exists any more) I think of people who have already arrived at their offices or factories – or those who are just climbing into bed after finishing the night shift. I remember what it was like to wait outside every morning for my ride to school where teachers were expected by 8:00AM and how cold it was in January or how hurried I was on the rare mornings that I overslept. Now my schedule is so diverse that my most precious possession has become my calendar! Keeping track of what day it is and where I need to be at what time can become a tricky task some days! Mostly I just think of how lucky I am to have work that is usually of my own choosing which feeds my spiritual self and is also in service to others.

Here’s something from Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours that gave rise to the above considerations:

All Christian life is meant to be at the same time profoundly contemplative and rich in active work…Christian holiness can no longer be considered a matter purely of individual  and isolated acts of virtue. It must be seen as part of a great collaborative effort for spiritual and cultural renewal in society, to produce conditions in which all can work and enjoy the just fruits of their labor in peace.

May all of our work be a blessing in our own lives and for the good of the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February

01 Monday Feb 2016

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calendar, February, go out and play, leap year, Meg Wheatley, months, perseverance, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, try hard

agroundhogToday begins the shortest month of our calendar year. Many people have commented on their sense of how fast time is going. “Where did January go?” they ask. Luckily for those people, this year – this “leap year” – we have an extra day in February so perhaps the 29th will feel like an extra breath, a moment of time to be cherished. February is known in the Northeast as “the dead of winter” although this year we’re a little confused about what season we’re actually in since yesterday the weather was sunny and the temperature reached 50 degrees (F). As usual at the beginning of a month, I will look at my calendar today to consider what it holds and hope some measure of balance meets my gaze. If not, I will take to heart a little dialogue at the end of Meg Wheatley’s book Perseverance called “Time to Play” that might help others too.

A busy executive was speaking to her six year old niece at the end of a particularly frustrating day. She’d spent the better part of the day trying to get a new printer installed. Nothing had worked, and she was exhausted and very frustrated. On the phone with her young niece, she described in general terms how frustrated she was. Her niece asked, “Did you try hard?”  “Yes,” she replied. “Did you try really, really hard?” “Yes, I did.” “Well then,” said the six year old, “now it’s time to go out and play.”

May February be a time of blessing for us all!

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